Swoyersville man sentenced for West Scranton bank robbery
Oct. 25—SCRANTON — A Luzerne County man identified as a suspect in a 2019 bank robbery in West Scranton through DNA recovered from the holdup note will avoid state prison.
Vasiliy Chinikaylo, 32, Swoyersville, was sentenced Tuesday by Lackawanna County Judge Michael J. Barrasse to 11 to 23 months in Lackawanna County Prison plus five years of probation on one felony count of robbery by demanding money from a financial institution.
City police detectives charged Chinikaylo in January with robbing the Wells Fargo Bank branch office at 101 N. Main Ave. on Dec. 30, 2019.
Chinikaylo, who pleaded guilty June 27, admitted entering the bank and passing a teller a note written on a business envelope saying he had a bomb and to hand over money.
"No ink or trackers or else," the note read.
Chinikaylo got away with more than $8,100, according to investigators.
Chinikaylo's attorney, Demetrius Fannick, who asked the court for leniency, told Barrasse the defendant fully cooperated with police.
Chinikaylo also completed a drug and alcohol treatment program and is employed, his attorney said.
"He presently has his life back in order," Fannick told the judge.
In handing down the sentence, Barrasse told Chinikaylo he acknowledged Fannick's comments about his putting his life back together but said the defendant still committed a serious crime that endangered people.
He also ordered Chinikaylo to make restitution to the bank.
During the robbery investigation, detectives collected DNA from the holdup note and submitted the samples to a state police laboratory.
After an analysis found the DNA on the note preliminarily matched known samples belonging to Chinikaylo, investigators obtained a new DNA sample from the defendant that confirmed the match last fall, police said.
Contact the writer:
dsingleton@timesshamrock.com, 570-348-9132.
