Cairo Man Sentenced to 23 Years in Prison for Assisting in
the 2014 Attempted Armed Robbery of
Otha Don Watkins, III, 35, of Cairo, Illinois, was sentenced
today in United States District Court in Benton to 23 years in prison for
assisting James Nathanial Watts in the May 15, 2014, attempted armed robbery of
the First National Bank in Cairo and for other related crimes, announced Donald
S. Boyce, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Illinois. Watkins
admitted that he assisted Watts in the planning of the robbery, drove him to
the bank on May 15, and served as a lookout while communicating with Watts via
a hand-held radio. After failing to obtain any money, Watts killed long-time
bank employees Anita Grace and Nita Jo Smith and seriously injured a third
employee.
Watkins had previously pled guilty in January 2018 to
assisting Watts in that offense and to making false statements to the FBI
during the investigation of the attempted bank robbery, possessing a stolen
firearm, and conspiring with Watts to commit robberies that interfered with
interstate commerce. That conspiracy included both the attempted robbery of the
First National Bank and the successful May 2014 armed robbery of over $12,000
from a McDonald’s Restaurant in Charleston, Missouri.
The 23-year sentence was imposed consecutively to a
155-month federal prison sentence which Watkins was already serving for the
armed robbery of another McDonald’s restaurant in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, in
October 2014. According to information from the Federal Bureau of Prisons,
Watkins will not finish serving that sentence until January 7, 2026. Watkins
will begin serving the 23-year sentence imposed today after that date.
In addition to the term of imprisonment, Watkins was ordered
to pay a total of $12,062.51 in restitution to the owner of the Charleston
McDonalds and its insurer. Watkins was also placed on a five-year term of
supervised release to follow his incarceration. After sentencing, Watkins was
returned to the custody of the United States Marshal to await his return to the
Federal Bureau of Prisons.
James Watts was previously sentenced in May 2017 to life in
prison plus ten years for his role in these crimes.
The investigation in this case was conducted by the Federal
Bureau of Investigation and the Illinois State Police with the assistance of
numerous other law enforcement agencies in Illinois and Missouri.
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