THOUSAND OAKS : Woman Sought in Bank Robbery

A woman robbed an American Savings Bank in the Janss Mall in Thousand Oaks on Monday, becoming the first female bank robber in Ventura County in more than a year, FBI officials said.

The woman, who entered the bank at 2:30 p.m., told the teller that she had a gun and demanded cash. Several bank patrons noticed her because of her unusual appearance, said Gary Auer, head of the FBI’s Ventura office.

Witnesses said the woman was white, in her 30s, 5 feet, 5 inches tall and weighed 130 pounds, with brown hair and acne and pockmarks on her face.

Auer said the witness who got the closest look at the robber believed her to be homeless because her skin “seemed to have been exposed the elements.”

It was the 39th bank robbery so far this year in Ventura County, officials said. There were 43 bank robberies in the county in 1990, including one in Simi Valley committed by a woman.

In an unrelated development Monday, U.S. District Judge Ronald S. W. Lew sentenced a 29-year-old Oxnard man to fie years and three months in prison and fined him $1,000 for the Aug. 6 robbery of a Home Savings of America bank branch on Victoria Avenue in Ventura.

Lew also ordered the convicted robber, Christopher L. Wholihan, to pay $648 restitution to the bank. Wholihan pleaded guilty in September to a single bank robbery count after Ventura police tracked him through a fingerprint taken from the robbery scene.