A long time bank robber who has done multiple prison terms for his crimes was sentenced today in U.S. District Court in Tacoma to 12 years in prison for a January 2015 bank robbery, announced U.S. Attorney Annette L. Hayes. LARRY G. BAILEY, JR., 53, of Chehalis, Washington has spent most of his adult life in prison for bank robbery. This latest robbery occurred shortly after he escaped from a half-way house following his last ten year prison term. At sentencing U.S. District Judge Ronald B. Leighton said the prison term was necessary to protect the community.
According to records filed in the case, on January 26, 2015 BAILEY walked into a Chase bank branch in Chehalis dressed as an elderly woman, with a canvas bag and one of his hands hidden under his shirt. He introduced himself to the bank manager saying he was “on his third strike.” BAILEY told the manager he had a gun and wanted to be taken to the vault. BAILEY took $36,000 from the vault and fled on a silver bicycle. A Lewis County Sheriff’s Deputy spotted BAILEY riding away near an I-5 overpass and after a brief foot pursuit took him into custody. All of the stolen money was recovered.
BAILEY’s bank robbery history begins in the 1980s. His first prison term for bank robbery was 30 months and he was released in 1990. In 1991 he was sentenced to nearly ten years in prison for bank robberies in Kansas and Spokane, Washington. Five years after his release on that prison term, in July 2004, BAILEY was arrested and sentenced to ten years in prison for another bank robbery in Spanaway, Washington. He escaped from a community corrections facility in Tacoma in March 2013, and was taken back into custody in August 2013. BAILEY was sent back to prison to finish his prison term. He had been out of prison less than a year when he committed the bank robbery in Chehalis.
The case was investigated by the Chehalis Police Department, the Lewis County Sheriff’s Office and the FBI. The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Grady Leupold.