U.S. District Judge George L. Russell sentenced Fletcher Dorsett, age 53, of Salisbury, Maryland to 150 months in federal prison, followed by three years of supervised release, for a series of nine bank robberies and attempted robberies. Dorsett continued to commit robberies while on escape status from a halfway house after his release for a previous federal bank robbery conviction.
The sentence was announced by Acting United States Attorney for the District of Maryland Jonathan F. Lenzner; Acting Special Agent in Charge Rachel Byrd of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Baltimore Field Office. Chief Melissa R. Hyatt of the Baltimore County Police Department; Commissioner Michael Harrison of the Baltimore Police Department; Chief Edward Jackson of the Annapolis Police Department; Interim Chief Hector Velez of the Prince George’s County Police Department; and Chief Robert J. Contee, III of the Metropolitan Police Department.
According to his guilty plea, Dorsett was previously convicted of federal bank robbery charges, sentenced to eight years in prison, and placed at a halfway house in May of 2019. On July 25, 2019, Dorsett did not return to the halfway house and was placed in escape status. Dorsett was subsequently arrested on a warrant relating to that escape on August 9, 2019, and held at Piedmont Regional Jail in Virginia until he was released on September 24, 2019.
Dorsett admitted that he robbed a bank in Baltimore on July 29, 2019, while he was on escape status. After his arrest and release on September 24, 2019, Dorsett continued to rob banks in Baltimore County, Baltimore City, Prince Georges County, and Washington, D.C., and attempted to rob two other banks.
In all of these bank robberies, Dorsett used a note that threatened that he had a gun. Specifically, between September 26 and October 28, 2019, Dorsett robbed banks in Washington, D.C., and in Baltimore, Annapolis, and Nottingham, Maryland, and attempted to rob banks in Lanham, Maryland and Washington, D.C.
As Dorsett left the bank in Nottingham on October 28, 2019, an off-duty police officer who happened to be in the bank pursued and detained him until on-duty Baltimore County Police officers arrived and arrested him. Dorsett agreed to be interviewed by law enforcement and admitted to robbing the nine above-referenced banks in Maryland and Washington, DC. Dorsett also identified himself in various bank surveillance images captured during the robberies.
Acting United States Attorney Jonathan F. Lenzner praised the FBI, and the Baltimore County, Baltimore City, Annapolis, Prince George’s County and Metropolitan Police Departments for their work in the investigation and thanked the State’s Attorneys for Baltimore County, Baltimore City, Prince George’s County, and Anne Arundel County, and the U.S. Attorney for Washington, D.C. for their assistance in the investigation and prosecution. Mr. Lenzner thanked Assistant U.S. Attorney Judson T. Mihok, who prosecuted the federal case.
