Countywide : Man Sentenced in Bank Robbery

A Van Nuys man who admitted robbing a Westlake Village bank last November has been sentenced to more than seven years in federal prison, the FBI announced.

Lynn Charles Smith, 40, was sentenced in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles on Monday for the Nov. 30 robbery of the Westlake Village branch of Security Pacific Bank, said FBI Special Agent Gary Auer.

During the robbery, Smith used a note to order a teller to hand over large bills to him, Auer said. He was arrested after a bank employee described the getaway car to police, who pursued it on the Ventura Freeway for 20 minutes before stopping it in Van Nuys, he said.

In addition, a man captured by police after a Jan. 22 bank robbery in Ventura has pleaded guilty to it, and the driver in that incident has been indicted for another Ventura County robbery, Auer said.

Carlos Bernard Chacon, 29, and Arnold Valdivia, 31, both of Oxnard, were stopped by Ventura police and Ventura County sheriff’s deputies shortly after the robbery of a Bank of America on Telephone Road, Auer said.

Money from the robbery was found in the vehicle, which Valdivia was driving, he said.

Chacon pleaded guilty to a single charge of bank robbery on Monday, Auer said, and is scheduled to be sentenced June 7.

Valdivia was later connected to the Jan. 12 robbery of a Bank of America in Westlake Village and indicted by a federal grand jury on Feb. 23, he said.

Valdivia was not charged in the bank robbery that led to Chacon’s conviction because investigators were unable to prove he participated in the robbery, Auer said.

“Drivers are really tough to prosecute,” Auer said. “We have to put people right inside the bank to get a conviction.”