Bank Robber Gets 18-Year Prison Term

A man who led police on a high-speed chase and shot at officers in a Laguna Hills bank robbery in 1991 was sentenced to 18 years in federal prison, authorities said Monday.

Alvin Orlando Williams, 27, of Mission Hills was sentenced by U.S. District Judge David V. Kenyon to serve 18 years and five months in prison, Assistant U.S. Atty. Kendra S. McNally said.

Williams pleaded guilty to the $188 robbery of a Farmers and Merchants Bank in Orange on Aug. 16, 1991. He also was convicted of the April 19, 1993, armed robbery of a Wells Fargo Bank in Laguna Hills.

In the Laguna Hills robbery, Williams shot twice at sheriff’s deputies before getting in a van and fleeing from the bank, McNally said. The deputies chased the van at speeds up to 60 m.p.h. through a residential area but slowed when shots were fired from the van.

Deputies later found Williams and two accomplices after their getaway vehicle nearly collided with a deputy’s car and struck the curb of a bicycle path near Interstate 5.

In sentencing Williams, Kenyon said he was taking into account the shooting at sheriff’s deputies and the reckless endangerment of citizens during the chase.

The case was a joint investigation of the FBI and the Orange County Sheriff’s Department. A co-defendant, Gregory Craver, will be sentenced March 27 for his part in the armed robbery.