© Stuff.co.nzModern Robin Hood: Corey Donaldson caught on CCTV.
The Wyoming judge sentenced 40-year-old Corey Donaldson to 70 months for bank robbery.
Donaldson claimed that he was justified in robbing more than US$140,000 from the US Bank in Jackson on New Year's Eve.
He has likened himself to Robin Hood and claims he gave much of the money to the homeless and staged the robbery to call attention to problems with the banking system.
In his closing address, he admitted he robbed the bank but asked the jury to find him not guilty because "it is the patriotic thing to do" and it was time to make a stand against banks.
His advice fell on deaf ears. The jury took just 50 minutes to convict him.
To commit the robbery, he handed a note to the bank manager warning him Mexican drug cartel members were waiting outside, had placed military grade explosives in the snow around the bank and would hunt down and kill him if money was not handed over to Donaldson.
Law enforcement officers arrested Donaldson in Utah and recovered more than US$30,000 from him and from a room he rented in an upscale hotel.
Donaldson said he was the second of 11 children and grew up in the country outside Melbourne, only to see his father lose his home to bank foreclosure. He said he was now a legal resident in the US.
Donaldson said he became homeless late last year, coming face-to-face with people who were on the streets because of bank foreclosures.
"I came up with the idea that since the banks had been bailed out and the people had not, I was going to confiscate money from US Bank in Jackson and redistribute it to the poor and homeless in America," Donaldson said. "And that's what I did."
Source: Associated Press
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