Guilty pleas wrap up bank robbery case

Manager and children were abducted; three men, woman await sentencing

Friday, May 15, 2009

Federal prosecutors assert that 35-year-old Joseph Franklin Brown Jr. is an "armed career criminal" for possessing a gun after an earlier drug conviction. He and three other suspects who earlier pleaded guilty to charges from the bank robbery will receive their penalty at sentencing hearings beginning next month.

Brown and William Cordell Johnson, 38, of Port Republic abducted the bank's branch manager and her two children at gunpoint on Sept. 24 at her Calvert County home, court papers state, and drove them in her SUV to near the PNC Bank branch in California, where she went inside and got about $169,000 as her son was held hostage in the vehicle.

Quinita Jesse Ennis, a 31-year-old Lexington Park woman who was Brown's girlfriend at the time, earlier had purchased the 9mm rifle at the Tackle Box sporting goods store in Lexington Park, court papers state, and Ennis drove Brown and Johnson to the bank manager's home. Ennis also drove back to St. Mary's in her car, talking by cell phone to the two other culprits as they traveled with the bank manager.

St. Mary's detectives tracked the suspects' travels and lavish spending after the holdup, leading within two weeks to the discovery of buried evidence behind Brown's home and the four arrests. Ennis and Johnson pleaded guilty to conspiracy and armed robbery charges, federal prosecutors report, and Johnson faces a possible life sentence on a weapons charge. Edwin Jonathan Jones, 41, of Lexington Park pleaded guilty to being an accessory after the fact, according to federal prosecutors who report Jones accompanied the three other culprits on a trip on the night after the robbery to Atlantic City, N.J., where they arrived with "tens of thousands of dollars" to gamble at casinos.

Latoya Booth, the bank branch manager, was released unharmed that morning by her abductors, as were her two children, including a daughter who accompanied her going into the bank.

Booth continued in her banking career after the incident, and was recognized at a St. Mary's sheriff's office awards banquet held last month.

"She received an award for her bravery," sheriff's deputy Cindy Allen said Thursday, "and everything she did to assist the investigation."

Brown was dealing drugs in 2005 when he and Ennis began their relationship, charging papers state, and Brown gave her money to buy the gun for him last June.

Brown's income from dealing drugs began to dwindle last summer, and he and Johnson plotted to carry out a bank robbery, targeting the PNC branch at the Esperanza shopping center.

Ennis began spying on the bank manager's travel patterns between home and work, court papers state, and Brown eventually took part in the surveillance activity.

After the robbery, court papers state, Brown and Johnson buried the 9mm rifle behind a shed in Brown's backyard, along with safes holding $84,000. Brown planned to move with Ennis to North Carolina, and they made plans to fly with Johnson to Las Vegas before police raided Brown's property and also found about $16,000 in Ennis' purse at her workplace.

jwharton@somdnews.com