Man Gets 4 Years in Va., D.C. Robberies

Bruce Higgins Jr. had a wife, a daughter and a high-paying job. Then he got into cocaine and heroin. Early this year, he robbed two banks by threatening tellers with an imaginary gun in his pocket.

On Tuesday, the 35-year-old Lorton man was sentenced to four years and three months in federal prison for the robberies. U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly said Higgins "terrorized" bank employees.

Federal prosecutors said Higgins entered the SunTrust bank at 410 Rhode Island Ave. NE at 10:35 a.m. Feb. 24 and handed a teller a note demanding cash. The note also said Higgins had a gun, and he kept a hand in his jacket pocket as if he had such a weapon, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephanie Brooker.

The teller handed over $1,065. Four days later, Higgins struck again, this time at the SunTrust Bank at 901 N. Glebe Rd. in Arlington County. He again passed a note saying he had a gun and made off with $2,099, Brooker wrote in court papers.

Although Higgins was not armed, Brooker told the judge that "the offenses were violent."

"He was scary" to the tellers, she said.

At the time of the robberies, Higgins had lost a job at an information technology firm paying more than $100,000 a year, had recently gotten divorced and was living in a crack house in Northeast Washington, according to court records.

His attorney, Shawn Moore, said Higgins committed the robberies at the behest of a drug dealer who waited outside the banks during the heists. During one of those robberies, the dealer was armed to ensure Higgins completed the job, Moore wrote in court papers.

FBI agents linked Higgins to the District robbery by reviewing bank surveillance tapes. On those tapes, an agent spotted a man who looked just like Higgins making a legitimate transaction about two weeks before the robbery, authorities said.

Bank records, authorities said, revealed that man to be Higgins.