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Ohio woman gets 5 years in $8 million armored-car heist

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AKRON, Ohio — A man received eight years in prison Thursday for masterminding an $8 million armored-car heist, a crime he said was born of financial desperation.

Roger Dillon, 23, of Youngstown, told the judge that the November heist was a stupid thing to do.

"I can't look back and justify what I did," he said. "Things seemed hopeless and this seemed like a way out."

Dillon pleaded guilty in March to bank larceny and other charges in what federal prosecutors said was one of the largest thefts ever in northern Ohio. His mother, Sharon Gregory, was sentenced to three years in prison for her role in the heist, and on Wednesday his girlfriend, Nicole Boyd, received five years.

Dillon and Boyd, who say they are still in love, said they committed the crime because of money problems, including the foreclosure of their house.

"I couldn't see all the good things I had in life," Dillon said. "I was focusing on the bad things. I can't believe I let it all go for the money."

Dillon got the longest sentence because he organized the heist at AT Systems in Liberty, near Youngstown, recruited others to help him and violated the trust of his employer, U.S. District Judge John R. Adams said. Dillon had faced a maximum of 25 years in prison.

Dillon, who earned $10.25 an hour as a driver and messenger at the armored car company, used another employee's security code on Nov. 26 to pull a truck into a garage, load it with bags — with Boyd's help — and reset the alarm.

About $6.7 million in cash and more than $1 million in checks was taken; all but $3,500 was recovered. The FBI has said the theft was timed so that large amounts of money would be available after the busy post-Thanksgiving holiday shopping weekend.

Five days later, Dillon, Boyd, 25, and Gregory, 49, were arrested in Pipestem, W.Va., about 250 miles from the heist. The FBI — tipped by West Virginia receipts found in Boyd's abandoned pickup truck — found the loot stacked in a mobile home where the three had holed up.

John Comello, an investigator for Montreal-based Garda World Security Corp., which owns AT Systems, asked Adams to give Dillon the maximum sentence.

"The trust that was given to Mr. Dillon was completely violated," Comello said.

The judge, however, granted Dillon some leniency for taking responsibility for the crime and his lack of a prior criminal history.

Adams said he gave Gregory the lightest sentence because she didn't participate in the actual theft, didn't know the amount of money involved and because of her desperation from a longtime crack addiction.

Dillon had told his mother only that "something big is going to happen," said Gregory's attorney, James Campbell.

"I wish had stopped my son from doing what he did," Gregory tearfully told the judge. "I just didn't stop him and I'm ashamed of that."

The plea agreements in March disclosed that Dillon financed the plan with $50,000 smuggled out of a JP Morgan Chase Bank in Akron on Aug. 8 during an armored-car pickup. Dillon must pay the $50,000 back in restitution along with about $1,400 from the heist.