Houston men sentenced to more than four years in prison for Florida bank robbery

TALAHASSEE, Fla. (CBS12) – Two Texas men have been sentenced to more than four years in federal prison for bank robbery in Tallahassee.

Two Houston, Texas residents, Charles Deon Mathews, 30, and Shai Trymaine Fields, 31, were each sentenced to 51 months in federal prison. The sentencing follows their guilty pleas to bank robbery charges.

As explained in the press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Florida, Mathews and Fields drove from Houston to Tallahassee on July 19, 2023, where they ambushed an ATM technician who was repairing an ATM Wells Fargo ATM near Mahan Drive.

The two men, according to U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) reports, were in a rental vehicle wearing balaclavas and masks when they lunged at the ATM technician who backed away, then took four cassettes of money at the ATM. The duo then fled to Gainesville where they paid cash for flights back to Houston.

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The Tallahassee Police Department worked with the FBI to identify Mathews and Fields. The continuing FBI investigation has linked the two men to another similar robbery at a Chase Bank ATM in Detroit, Michigan.

With the facilitation of the Houston Police Department and the FBI, Mathews and Fields were arrested on federal arrest warrants for the Tallahassee robbery.

After their imprisonment, Mathews and Fields will face three years of supervised release and will be ordered to pay $88,710 in restitution to Wells Fargo, in addition to paying the government the same amount, as stated in the press release.