Man admits to stealing uncle's truck, robbing RBC Bank in Mobile

MOBILE, Al.
  James Raymond Jacobs was on the run from Pennsylvania authorities in August, had just spent his last $2 at a Mobile Burger King and was nearly out of gas.

James Jacobs

In desperation, he turned to a nearby RBC Bank, Jacobs admitted in Mobile’s federal court last week. After getting nearly $2,300 in the robbery, however, Jacobs crashed his getaway vehicle into a minivan within minutes.
Jacobs, 30, pleaded guilty to bank robbery. Prosecutors agreed to recommend a minimum sentence under advisory guidelines, which his attorney estimated to be a little less than six years.
Defense attorney Buzz Jordan said his client has been implicated, but not charged, in 3 other bank robberies in other states.
In an interview, he said Jacobs worked for a home improvement store in Pennsylvania for 10 years until he became addicted to painkillers following an accident.
“This guy was a model citizen,” Jordan said. “The drugs just wiped him out.”
Jacobs admitted that he went into the bank on the morning of Aug. 9 and asked about opening an account. He talked about the issue for about 5 to 7 minutes but left without opening an account.
According to Jacobs’ plea agreement, he returned about 20 minutes later and told a teller that he had decided to open the account but first wanted to withdraw money from an old account. Jacobs handed the teller a note stating that he wanted money and was armed.
The teller pulled out a stack of cash totaling $2,298.
Jacobs drove away in a 2007 Dodge Ram pickup truck, but wrecked near the intersection of Montlimar Drive and Zack Logan Avenue and was taken to a hospital.
Law enforcement authorities found all of the money from the heist in Jacobs’ overturned pickup truck.
The driver of the minivan and her two children did not require medical attention.