Two Plead Guilty in Takeover Robberies

Two men pleaded guilty to two counts of robbery Monday in connection with a string of takeover-style bank heists, including one in Rancho Bernardo.

Terry Mixon, 25, and Jeremy Gibbs, 23, are the third and fourth defendants in the robbery case, which involves five different banks hit for nearly $300,000 between September 2008 and January 2009. Two other defendants—Tranes Goins and Thaddeus Williams—have already been convicted and sentenced to spend more than a decade behind bars.

Mixon and Gibbs pleaded guilty to the two robbery counts on the day their trial was to begin and now face seven-year prison terms. Sentencing is set for Oct. 21 before Judge Leo Valentine Jr.

Deputy District Attorney Allen Brown said during Williams' trial that the men—usually in groups of three or four—entered the banks with guns drawn, jumped the counter and ordered the manager to open the vault.

On Sept. 30, 2008, three members of the group jumped out of a car and took $136,807 from a U.S. Bank branch in Del Mar, Brown said. They wore masks and athletic gloves, and at least two of them had guns, while two people ordered to the ground also were pepper-sprayed, he said.

On Dec. 1, 2008, four robbers got out of a different car and held up a Pacific Western bank in Rancho Bernardo for more than $25,500. They got away, but red-dye stained money and a .32-caliber pistol were found outside the bank.

The robbery group also made off with nearly $13,000 from an El Cajon Wells Fargo on Dec. 13, 2008; $103,000 from a U.S. Bank in San Marcos on Dec. 22, 2008; and more than $13,000 from a Bank of America in Del Cerro on Jan. 24, 2009.

Williams, one of the earlier defendants, in three robberies and was sentenced to 14 years and four months in prison. Goins was sentenced last month to 17 years in state prison.

City News Service contributed to this report.