Gambler Who Fed Addiction by Robbing Banks Gets 100 Years

A 57-year-old gambler, Terry Ball liked to take his chances at racetracks and casinos. But he also rolled the dice every time he walked into a bank to steal enough cash to feed his addiction.

This week, though, Ball’s luck ran out when a Ventura County Superior Court judge sentenced him to 100 years to life in prison for robbing a Simi Valley bank and shooting at a police officer as he fled the scene.

Ball pleaded guilty last month to four felony charges stemming from that Oct. 4 incident and a June 15 bank robbery in Thousand Oaks. The charges included attempted murder of a police officer.

Although bank robberies are typically handled in federal court, Ball was sentenced Tuesday in Superior Court because his most recent crimes constitute a third strike under state law.

Prosecutors said Wednesday that the sentence ensures that Ball, a former Los Angeles resident who has been convicted of eight bank robberies, never sets foot in a bank again.

“It seems every time he has been paroled from either federal or state prison, he’s robbed more banks,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. William Redmond, supervisor of the felony unit.

Prosecutors pushed for a 150-year prison sentence.

But Deputy Public Defender Doug Daily persuaded Judge Ken Riley to let his client serve some of the charges concurrently.

“Mr. Ball was more accepting of all this than I was,” Daily said, noting that his client wanted to plead guilty from the first day in court.

“Terry Ball has known and accepted this terrible addiction,” Daily said. “The is the sole reason that he has led this life as a bank robber.”

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Before his sentencing hearing this week, Ball told authorities he had carried out more than 200 bank robberies in the last 29 years, using the money to support his habit.

Ball told a probation officer that in the 3 1/2 months before his arrest, he carried out seven bank robberies up and down the state--hitting banks in San Francisco, Del Mar, Santa Barbara and Santa Anita.

“His gambling addiction was so beyond his control,” probation officer Kimbra Macauley wrote in a report to the judge, “that even within a month after being released on parole, he frequently began robbing banks again.”

Among his crimes, Ball told authorities, he stole $50,000 from a bank vault in Tulare County and took the money to bet in Tahoe. Ball won $220,000 at a casino, but later gambled away the winnings.

When police searched Ball’s car after his most recent arrest, they found photographs of the defendant standing in front of the casino, where his name was flashing on the marquee as the big winner.

The odds turned on Ball for the last time Oct. 4

That morning, Ball entered California Federal Bank in Simi Valley wearing a blue denim shirt, jeans and sunglasses.

According to a probation report, Ball approached a teller station, jumped on the counter and pulled a .40-caliber handgun from under his shirt.

“Give me all the money,” he yelled, according to the report.

As Ball left the bank with $3,460 in cash, he tripped in the parking lot and spilled hundreds of dollars from a black bag he was carrying.

A witness saw Ball fleeing the scene and flagged down a Simi Valley police officer, who chased the defendant in his patrol car. As Officer John Hughes caught up with the defendant, Ball charged at him with gun drawn, authorities said.

“Mr. Ball cranked off a couple of rounds at the police officer and fortunately missed,” Redmond said.

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Ball got back in his car and pulled onto California 118. As Ventura County sheriff’s deputies pursued, Ball pulled over and waved a white handkerchief out the window to surrender.

“He then confessed to this bank robbery as well as a June 15 bank robbery at the Los Robles Bank in Thousand Oaks,” Redmond said.

During that robbery, Ball entered the bank in midmorning wearing a tan mask, denim shirt and jeans. He jumped onto the counter, flashed a gun and ordered the tellers to open their cash drawers.

Authorities said he told three female bank employees, “Don’t be a hero and no one will get hurt,” according to the probation report.

Moving his gun to his left hand, Ball grabbed cash from the three tellers’ drawers and stuffed more than $8,000 into a light-colored bag. Witnesses told police he then jumped back over the counter and fled.

Daily said Ball never intended to hurt anyone in the robberies.

“He assured me he intended no harm to anyone in this case,” Daily said. “But at the same time, he knows he scared people.”

As for the police officer, Daily said Ball wanted to scare him off so he could make an escape.

Ball told the probation officer he usually carried a pellet gun in his robberies.