Ex-Marine Gets 4-Year Term in Bank Robberies

A former Marine involved in a string of West Coast bank robberies that netted more than $70,000 was sentenced to four years in prison for his role as a lookout and getaway driver.

Nicholas Paul Hills, 22, of Juneau, Wis., pleaded guilty to two counts of robbery in which he and another Marine stole from banks in California, Washington and Oregon.

In federal court Monday, Hills apologized for scaring anyone who was in those banks and was given a slightly reduced sentence as part of a plea bargain and for his secondary role.

Fellow Marine Benjamin Michael Johns, 23, of Colorado Springs, Colo., already has been sentenced to eight years in prison for committing seven robberies. Hills, who participated in five of those robberies, was charged with two in the plea bargain.

In the robberies, which took place between October 1998 and October 1999, Johns would enter the bank first, waving a pistol and ordering people to the floor. Hills acted as a lookout and was seen in a bank only once.

The first robberies were in communities near Camp Pendleton, their base north of San Diego, followed by heists in Palo Alto; Tukwila, Wash.; and Portland, Ore.

Hills and Johns fled Camp Pendleton in August after a base newspaper published photos of the two Marines taken from a bank security camera. The FBI had asked the paper to run the photos because the robbers looked like Marines.

Authorities arrested Hills in Portland and Johns in Idaho last October. The pair spent the stolen cash on two used Ford Mustang convertibles, clothes and a trip to Baja California, prosecutors said.

The two were lance corporals and members of a front-line Marine combat unit at the base. They have since received less than honorable discharges.