Pryor Daily Times

June 26, 2008

Defendants sentenced for bank robbery

Sommer Woodward

Three Mayes County residents were sentenced for their involvement in the Dec. 12, 2007, robbery of Bank of America in Catoosa.

Sandra Gayle Perry, 40, and Summer Perry, 23, both of Chouteau and J. Alan Sitsler, 23, Pryor, pleaded guilty in March to taking $111,000 from the bank.

Records state Sitsler’s girlfriend, Summer, and her mother, Sandra, an employee of the bank, hatched the plan to rob the bank.

Sitsler arrived Dec. 12 and gave a note to Sandra. The note said, “I’m deaf, my friend is in the car with a police scanner and if you call the police I’ll shoot everybody.”

After a tip to Crime Stoppers in Tulsa, FBI agents began looking into the possibility of the robbery being an inside job.

Surveillance photographs show Sandra turning away from Sitsler with a large smile on her face.

For her involvement, Sandra was sentenced to five years and five months in prison, beginning Aug. 5.

Summer was sentenced to four years and nine months in prison for her involvement with the Catoosa Bank of America robbery. Another one year was added to her sentence for revocation of a previous charge for stealing from a bank where she worked from 2005 to 2006.

Sitsler was sentenced to five years and three months in prison.