Three robbers sentenced to 15+ years in jail

The case of a foiled bank robbery, which occurred early last year, is over and the three defendants have been sentenced to almost two decades behind bars each. Nineteen-year-old Ryan Valerio was this morning ordered to spend nineteen years in jail, while twenty-nine year old Ecleston Bonilla and thirty year old Clifford Caballero, will spend the next eighteen years of their lives at the Hattieville prison. Valerio, Bonilla and Caballero have been convicted of the robbery of the Placencia branch of the Atlantic Bank. On Friday, January twenty-sixth, 2002, the three men placed logs across the Placencia road and then robbed a bank employee of some one hundred and thirteen thousand dollars in cash as he was leaving the village airstrip. The thieves managed to get as far as The Plantation Hotel, but thanks to quick efforts from police, they were forced to abandon the money and their getaway car. A massive manhunt was immediately launched in Placencia and its surrounding villages and the men were captured the next day. Valerio, Bonilla and Caballero were initially arrested on charges of robbery, attempted murder, conspiracy to commit robbery and several firearm and ammunition charges, but have only been convicted on the robbery and weapon charges.