Aspiring rapper sentenced for attempted carjacking
By Associated Press
Published December 7, 2003
BRADENTON - An aspiring rap musician has been sentenced to eight years in prison for trying to carjack a retired schoolteacher with a squirt gun last year.
On Thursday, Raymond S. Wank, 21, pleaded no contest to attempted carjacking, burglary and defrauding an innkeeper.
Senior Judge Thomas Gallen handed down the sentences, which will run at the same time as a nine-year prison sentence Wank received earlier this year for carjacking a Suwannee County woman.
Authorities said Wank and Gregory A. Bell, 19, went on a crime spree during a trip to Miami, where they were going to try to break into the music industry. Assistant State Attorney Scott Rieth said he thought the pair decided to steal cars after they were cited for hitchhiking in the Panhandle.
The Kalamazoo, Mich., men were arrested Nov. 25, 2002, after they kidnapped Cynda Futch, a Wal-Mart worker in Live Oak, and forced her to drive them to Bradenton.
Then they tried to carjack Nancy Rizzo in the parking lot of a Publix in Ellenton. The retired teacher grabbed her keys and cell phone, then ran inside the store, yelling for someone to call 911.
Deputies arrested Bell at a nearby McDonald's. Wank ran into a retention pond and concealed himself so well that deputies almost walked past him.
