Updated, Dec. 19
The Edgartown man police say was the ringleader behind the Vineyard Haven Rockland Trust armed bank robbery in 2022 was sentenced on Wednesday to a decade in prison.
Miquel Antonio Jones, 33, the only Vineyard resident part of the four-man robbery, was sentenced in Boston federal court for arranging the November armed bank robbery of $39,100, according to a release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, District of Massachusetts.
Federal prosecutors say that Jones identified the bank to rob, and obtained and provided materials for the robbery — including the distinct facemasks of elderly men, as well as zip ties and duct tape that prosecutors said were used to tie up bank employees.
Police on the Island are celebrating the 10-year sentence. “I am grateful we were able to identify all the suspects and get them into custody,” said Lt. William Brigham of the Tisbury Police Department. “Ten years is a long time to think about what you have done. We are also grateful for the assistance we received the first few days from all the local Island police agencies, Massachusetts State Police, and also the FBI, who were on scene within two hours.
“A lot of these crimes go unsolved, sort of like the B&E’s into all the cars, but good police work broke that case as well,” Lt. Brigham added.
Federal prosecutors condemned the crime following the sentencing. “This was a bold and brazen armed robbery carried out on a picturesque Island at the start of the day,” said Jodi Cohen, special agent in charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Boston Division. “Today’s sentence makes it clear that bank robbery is not an easy payday, it’s a federal crime, and the FBI and our partners will ensure perpetrators like Jones are held fully accountable.”
Three others involved in the robbery have yet to know their fate, but it appears that Jones may be receiving the longest sentence. Prosecutors, in a sentencing memorandum to the judge, argued that the incident never would have happened without him. “It was Jones who came up with the idea of robbing a bank,” wrote Meghan Cleary, assistant United States attorney. “Jones obtained bank security intel from a coworker, and selected the bank he would rob. He convinced his brothers-in-law to help him.”
Jones’ sentence will be followed by three years of supervised release. Judge William G. Young also ordered him to pay restitution in the amount of $39,100. The court also made a recommendation that the defendant be sent to a facility where he may access college coursework and parenting classes.
A grand jury indicted Jones in March 2023, and a superseding indictment brought additional charges against him in April 2023.
Prosecutors said that Jones conspired with his brother-in-laws, Omar Odion Johnson of Canterbury, N.H., and Romane Andre Clayton of Jamaica; Tevin Porter of Bridgeport, Conn., was recruited by Johnson. All three have pleaded guilty to their roles in the robbery.
In a release issued shortly after Jones’ sentencing on Wednesday, the U.S. attorney’s office said that Jones met the men on the Vineyard and detailed his plan, and that defendants also slept at Jones’ Edgartown residence the night before the robbery.
On the morning of Nov. 17, prosecutors say, Jones drove the group to the bank. After arriving, Jones, Johnson, and Porter hid in bushes near the rear of the bank while Clayton drove to a nearby State Forest to park the car before bicycling back to the bank, the U.S. attorney’s office wrote.
As the bank’s three employees arrived that morning, Jones, Johnson, and Porter, wearing masks and with two handguns, approached them and forced their way through the rear door, the prosecutors said. The U.S. attorney’s office said that once inside the bank, one of the individuals held a gun to the head of one of the bank employees, forced them to open the bank’s vault, and took approximately $39,100. The bank employees were bound with duct tape and plastic zip ties, and the defendants demanded access to one of their vehicles.
The U.S. attorney’s office stated that Jones, Porter, and Johnson then left the bank in an employee’s car, picked up Clayton outside the building, and drove to the Manuel Correllus State Forest, where they abandoned the vehicle in a parking lot before fleeing in another vehicle that Clayton had left there.
The prosecutor’s office said that Jones and Johnson drove to a local farm in Tisbury where Jones had done landscaping work to dispose of the equipment; they buried the two 9mm firearms, each loaded with a round in the chamber, before burning the remainder of the robbery equipment, including the plastic masks. The prosecutors said that Jones then hid the stolen money in his bedroom bureau. “He promised the others they would get a cut in the future, though never told them when or how much,” prosecutors wrote in their sentencing recommendation.
The U.S. attorney’s office recommended the 10 years as part of the plea.
The U.S. attorney’s office said it received assistance in the case from the Cape & Islands District Attorney’s Office; the Massachusetts State Police; the Tisbury, West Tisbury, Edgartown, Chilmark, Oak Bluffs, Aquinnah, Canterbury, N.H., and New Haven, Conn., police departments; the U.S. Postal Inspection Service; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms; Immigration and Customs Enforcement; and U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Assistant U.S. Attorney Meghan C. Cleary of the Criminal Division is prosecuting the case.
