A Marrero man who was convicted last month of robbing the same West Jefferson bank branch twice, about one year apart, has been sentenced to 50 years in prison.

Brandon Gray, 40, was convicted as charged by a Jefferson Parish jury on Sept. 22 of five counts of armed robbery, aggravated flight and two counts of aggravated assault. The five armed robbery counts represent the five bank employees he victimized during the two bank robberies.

With three of the victims sitting and the case detective Marc Macaluso seated in the front row of her courtroom, Judge Danyelle Taylor of the 24^th Judicial District Court sentenced Gray on Wednesday (Oct. 19) to 50 years for each of the robbery victims, five years for the aggravated assault and six months for each of the aggravated flight charges.

The 50-year sentences are to be served without benefit of probation, parole or suspended sentence. Judge Taylor ran the sentences concurrently and told Gray that his “actions were malevolent in nature.”

One of the victims wrote a letter to the court as impact testimony, urging the judge to sentence Gray to the maximum punishment allowable. She noted “the tremendous impact” Gray’s crimes had on her and her coworkers, and that he had not been rehabilitated after serving prison time for a 1997 armed robbery, involving the carjacking of a 64-year-old Westwego man in front of his home.

The victim said she and coworkers twice had to endure Gray entering their workplace, leaving in his wake anxiety that employees continue to suffer despite knowing that he has been incarcerated. One employee no longer works in banks because of the robbery experience.

“Mr. Gray held a gun to my ribs and threatened to kill me,” the victim wrote.

Gray robbed the Iberia Bank branch on Barataria Boulevard in Marrero on Sept. 30, 2013 and got away with it until he returned to the bank a second time on Oct. 9, 2014, to rob it again, according to trial testimony.

As Gray entered the bank, using vulgar and threatening language and pointing a pistol at employees, a banker happened to be speaking on the phone with her husband, a Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office lieutenant. He immediately began broadcasting the robbery in progress over the police radio system, relaying to his fellow deputies details about the robber as soon as his wife relayed the details to him, according to testimony.

With that information, a deputy spotted Gray in his sports-utility vehicle stopped at a red light at a Marrero intersection. Noticing the deputy behind him, Gray became nervous and accelerated through the red light, leading deputies on a pursuit through Marrero, according to testimony.

Gray drove into the Lincolnshire subdivision, where he wrecked his SUV into a house on Constantine Street. He jumped out of the driver’s seat and ran around the rear of his SUV. The plastic grocery bag in which he carried the stolen cash snagged the rear bumper, ripping it open and spilling the bills on the lawn.

He then climbed over a side fence into the house’s back yard, where he turned and faced two deputies. He pointed a pistol at the deputies, one of whom opened fire, striking Gray once in his right leg, according to trial testimony.

Gray fled but was caught nearby. The two deputies are the victims in the aggravated flight and aggravated assault charges.

The weapon Gray used during the 2014 robbery was an air gun pellet pistol, leading his attorney to argue at trial that, among other things, he could not be convicted of armed robbery.

Judge Taylor noted Gray’s use of the pellet pistol. “No one should have to experience that,” Judge Taylor said, noting the victims’ testimony.

Gray, seated in a wheel chair because of the gunshot wound, said nothing during the sentencing hearing. His attorney’s requests for a new trial and post-verdict judgment of acquittal were denied.

Assistant District Attorneys Blair Constant and Thomas Sanderson prosecuted the case.

A Marrero teenager whose DNA connected him to a carjacking outside a busy West Bank business abruptly ended his trial Thursday morning and pleaded guilty as charged.

After hearing his victim and deputies testify against him, Rockeen Jacks, 19, admitted on the second day of his trial his guilt of armed robbery using a firearm. He admitted he committed the Dec. 22, 2015 crime outside a convenience store in the 6200 block of the Westbank Expressway, at Ames Boulevard in Marrero.

In accepting the plea, Judge Stephen Grefer of the 24^th Judicial District Court sentenced Jacks to 16 years in prison: 10 years for the robbery, five years as a sentence enhancement because a gun was used in the crime and one year for an unrelated battery on a corrections officer for an incident in the parish jail in June.

The 64-year-old victim testified he purchased a plate of food in the store and was returning to his 2002 Nissan Altima in the parking lot about 4 p.m. That’s when Jacks, his head covered by the hoodie he wore as he lurked in the parking lot, approached the victim with a black semiautomatic pistol beside his leg.

Jacks repeatedly demanded the keys. The victim initially resisted, even as they stood “eye to eye, face to face,” the victim testified Wednesday.

An “old man” who witnessed the altercation told the victim to give the robber the keys, the victim testified. “Man, don’t let him shoot you out here for nothing,” the man told him before driving away, never to be identified. The victim surrendered the keys.

During his testimony, the victim was asked to describe the robber. “What did he look like? He’s sitting right there,” the victim replied, pointing to Jacks sitting nearby at the defense table.

Jacks drove away east on the Westbank Expressway. The victim called 911, initiating an investigation by the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office.

Two days later, on Christmas Eve 2015, the victim and his brother separately spotted the stolen car with two men inside, being driven north on Silver Lilly Lane in Marrero. The victim called 911 and followed the car, relating his whereabouts to the dispatcher until he lost it. He spotted it parked in the 900 block of DiMarco Drive – the same block where Jacks lived. Its occupants were gone. He called 911 again, reporting he found the car.

The Sheriff’s Office Regional DNA Laboratory later found Jacks’ DNA on a plastic water bottle in the car. His DNA profile was in a federal law enforcement database because of a previous conviction of battery on a welfare worker. When shown a photographic line-up that included Jacks’ photo, the victim positively identified him as the person who carjacked him.

Assistant District Attorneys Thomas Sanderson and Blair Constant prosecuted the case.

A Marrero man was convicted Thursday night (Sept. 22) of robbing the same bank branch twice, slightly one year apart. Brandon Gray initially got away with the first robbery, but he was arrested after the second one, when he led deputies on a vehicle pursuit that culminated with his being shot in his right leg by an officer.

Gray, 40, who is transported between the parish jail and court in a wheel chair because of the bullet wound, was convicted as charged of five counts of armed robbery, aggravated flight and two counts of aggravated assault. The five robbery counts involve the five bank employees who were victimized during the two bank heists.

He was convicted of robbing the Iberia Bank branch on Barataria Boulevard in Marrero on Sept. 30, 2013, and returning again on Oct. 9, 2014. He stole almost $20,000 between the robberies, but only about $15,700 was recovered following his arrest for the second crime.

The jury heard testimony from tellers and managers, who noted similarities in the robberies. Each time, Gray covered his face, leaving victims unable to identify him. However, the robber was physically similar, used white plastic grocery bags to carry the cash, carried a black pistol and used similar vulgar words in directing and threatening to kill his victims, according to testimony.

“The first thing is the voice, the sound of the voice,” the assistant branch manager testified Wednesday in drawing similarities. “The language that was used was the same both times. … I feel confident that it was the same person.”

The bank branch manager, who also witnessed both robberies and had a pistol pointed at him during the crimes, concurred, saying it was “the same type of language he used the year before.”

During the second robbery, one of the bank employees happened to be speaking with her husband on the phone when the robber burst in. Her husband, Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office Lt. Oliver Silvey, was driving to his off-duty security detail at the time.

“All of sudden she said, ‘Oh my god, we’re getting robbed, we’re getting robbed,’” Silvey testified. She put the phone down but resumed the conversation minutes later, hysterically saying they were robbed.

Silvey said he was broadcasting the robbery on the police radio “within seconds,” relaying the information his wife was providing to his fellow deputies. Those details included the suspect’s description and that he drove a blue Chevrolet Suburban, Silvey testified.

Deputy Ted Raymond was patrolling when he heard Silvey’s broadcast. He activated his emergency lights and rushed toward the bank when he spotted a blue Suburban stopped at the red light at Ames and Lapalco boulevards, he testified.

“The driver started hopping around, jumping around in the front seat,” Raymond testified in describing Gray’s nervous demeanor. With the police vehicle behind him, Gray ran the red light, Raymond testified. Gray led Raymond and Deputy Alvin Farris on a vehicle pursuit, during which the suspect ran stop signs and traffic lights, the officers testified. Gray drove more than twice the speed limit on the residential streets of the Lincolnshire subdivision, the deputies testified.

In the 2000 block of Constantine Street, Gray crashed the Suburban into the front of a house. The deputies testified they saw him jump out of the driver’s door carrying a pistol in his right hand and a white grocery bag in his left hand.

As Gray ran behind the Suburban, the plastic bag snagged the rear bumper, ripping it open and scattering the stolen cash on the front lawn, the deputies testified. Gray ran up an alley and hopped a chain link fence into the back yard, ignoring the deputies’ commands to stop.

“He turned around in a cowboy stance and he pointed the gun at me,” Raymond testified. “That’s when I fired three times. I thought it was three times. I was (later) told it was seven to six or seven.”

Farris stood behind Raymond with his service pistol drawn and pointed at Gray. But Farris testified he did not open fire because Raymond was too close to his line of fire.

Despite being shot once in his right leg, Gray ran across the back yard and hopped another fence. Deputies that converged on the area arrested him. The deputies also found the pistol Gray used. It was a toy airgun pellet pistol, according to testimony.

During his interrogation, Gray confessed to Robbery Detective Marc Macaluso that he robbed the bank in 2014, saying he had to support five children but trying to minimize his actions. His attorney argued that it did not qualify legally as an armed robbery by definition, because a toy pellet pistol was used, not an actual firearm.

Gray denied robbing the bank in 2013. In that crime, the robber drove a gold Chevrolet Suburban as the getaway vehicle. That Suburban was recovered on Constantine Street following the 2014 armed robbery, near where Gray drove into the house, and in it were pellets and construction gear similar to the green construction vest the robber wore in the 2013 bank robbery, Macaluso testified.

Gray faces 10 years to 99 years in prison for each armed robbery count. Judge Danyelle Taylor of the 24^th Judicial District Court scheduled Gray’s sentencing hearing for Oct. 6.

Gray, who did not testify this week, was convicted of a 1997 armed robbery in Westwego, for which he received a 15-year prison sentence. The 64-year-old victim in that crime was changing a fuse in his minivan when Gray approached armed with a revolver and threatened to kill him. The victim resisted and struggled with Gray, who was able to get away in the minivan.

He led deputies on a pursuit, in which he drove the wrong way on Lapalco Boulevard and onto the Harvey Canal bridge. He collided with several vehicles, sending one motorist to the hospital, and he jumped off the bridge into the Harvey Canal in a failed attempt to escape, police said.

Prosecutors made a pretrial attempt to use the 1997 conviction as evidence of prior “bad acts” in this week’s trial. However, Judge Taylor denied prosecutors’ request, meaning the jury heard nothing about the 1997 conviction this week.

Assistant District Attorneys Blair Constant and Thomas Sanderson prosecuted the 2013 and 2014 robberies.