Appeals court affirms 20-year sentence for Tupelo bank robber
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Jul. 12—NEW ORLEANS — A federal appeals court on Wednesday affirmed a 20-year-sentence for a Tupelo bank robber, rejecting his appeal that the sentence was unreasonable.
Jasper Michael Wagner, 57, argued that U.S. District Court Judge Sharion Aycock abused her discretion when she rejected the prosecutor's recommendation and imposed the maximum sentence. The appeal to the United States Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals also said the judge erred by considering his previous criminal history while imposing the sentence.
The government sentencing guideline recommended between 12 and 15 years. The judge instead sentenced him to 20 years. In the appeal, he argues that the court failed to consider more than half of the points required to deviate from the government's sentencing guidelines.
The appeals court disagreed, saying Aycock "adequately articulated" her consideration of the factors before imposing the longer sentence.
"There is no indication that an important factor was overlooked, that an improper factor was given significant weight, or that the imposed sentence suggests a clear error of judgment in the court's balancing of the factors," the opinion says.
The appeals court further said that Aycock was within her discretion to consider Wagner's long history of robbing banks and to infer that he had traumatized the bank tellers in determining a sentence.
Since 2002, Wagner has pleaded guilty in federal court to 11 bank robberies in seven states, from New Mexico to the Carolinas, including three in Mississippi. Wagner's life of crime has followed a distinct pattern: He robs several banks, gets caught, serves about 10 years in prison, gets out and starts robbing banks again.
Wagner has only been out of prison about 15 months since June 2002. During that free time, he has robbed at least four banks.
He had been out of a federal prison about four months when he walked into the Community Bank on West Main Street in Tupelo on April 6, 2022, around lunchtime and handed the clerk a note telling her to provide him $5,000. He walked out of the bank with around $5,000 in a bank bag. When he was apprehended in a Leeds, Alabama, hotel room about four hours later, he still had the bank bag and most of the money.
All but around $150 of the money was recovered.
