Police officer who robbed two banks in San Francisco will spend time behind bars

A San Francisco police officer who is suspended without pay for sending racist and homophobic text messages has been sentenced to 2 ½ years in prison for robbing two banks, prosecutors announced Thursday.

Rain Daugherty, 44, also will have to repay the more than $10,000 he stole from the banks. Once he serves his prison term, he will be under supervised release for three years, the U.S. attorney’s office said in a news release.

Daugherty was indicted in January and charged with four counts of bank robbery. He admitted to robbing two banks in February, and the other two charges were dismissed, prosecutors said.

In his plea agreement, Daugherty admitted that on Nov. 29, he entered an East West Bank in the Sunset District of San Francisco and slipped a note to a bank teller demanding $50 and $100 bills. The teller gave Daugherty the cash.

Two weeks later, Daugherty went to a bank on Clement Street in San Francisco and again demanded money by slipping the bank teller a note, he admitted.

FBI agent Gary Grzymala said in an affidavit that “the robber said something to the effect of ‘Calm down, just do it,’ ” and fled with about $9,050 in cash.

Internal affairs officers with the San Francisco Police Department helped identify Daugherty using surveillance footage video from the first robbery, Assistant U.S. Atty. Abraham Simmons said.

In court, Daugherty apologized for the robberies. His daughter Elizabeth Falk said Daugherty was addicted to opioids and was living in his car at the time.

The suspended police officer has accumulated an extensive criminal record in the last few years. In 2017, he was accused of stealing about $24,000 from an elderly man with dementia over the course of three months in San Mateo County.

While serving a search warrant at Daugherty’s home, authorities said they found cocaine and prescription narcotics. The San Mateo County district attorney charged him with one felony count of theft and four misdemeanor counts of drug possession.

Daugherty also is one of nine San Francisco police officers who were involved in a text messaging scandal in 2015 after a corruption investigation of a department sergeant.

The probe revealed text messages sent between 2011 and 2012 that included racist and homophobic messages about minorities and gay people. The officers used words such as “savages” and the N-word to describe African Americans and suggested they be spayed like animals.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

alejandra.reyesvelarde@latimes.com

Twitter: @r_valejandra