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Almost 16 years for heist, sting
By WILLIAM R. LEVESQUE
© St. Petersburg Times, TAMPA -- A 19-year-old man who helped rob a Pinellas bank and was then snared in a drug sting was sentenced in federal court to nearly 16 years in prison Thursday. John T. Holzer of Seminole pleaded guilty in May to taking $6,687 during a robbery of the First National Bank in Seminole earlier this year. An accomplice, Robert Walter Howe, 28, of Davie, also has pleaded guilty to the charge and is scheduled to be sentenced in October. In the drug case, Holzer pleaded guilty to conspiracy to possess and distribute more than 5 kilograms of cocaine and the possession of a firearm in furtherance of drug trafficking. "The question is what kind of person are you going to be when you get out of prison," U.S. District Judge James S. Moody Jr. said Thursday in sentencing him on the drug and robbery charges. Holzer was one of six men federal prosecutors say expected to make thousands of dollars with an armed invasion of a Colombian drug ring's "stash house." Undercover agents for the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms met the men through a confidential informant. An undercover ATF agent told the men that a Colombian organization got large deliveries of cocaine and money at a Tampa Bay area house, the location of which would remain a secret until the day before the men robbed it. Holzer, Howe and the others bragged about their experience in home invasion robberies and said they could pose as police to steal the stash. But the house never existed, and the agents arrested all the players shortly before they were to launch the robbery. During the investigation, Howe and Holzer were linked to the bank robberies. Earlier this year, a jury convicted Anthony Scott Williams, 33, of Largo; Joshua Keith Boyer, 24, also of Largo; and Howe. They were all found guilty of conspiracy to possess and distribute cocaine and possession of a firearm in furtherance of drug trafficking. Another man, Ronnie Mota, 28, of Tampa, was acquitted of the charges. Jerome Harold Lummus, 23, of Gulfport, pleaded guilty to the charges and is awaiting sentencing. Holzer cooperated with prosecutors in the case against the other defendants.
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