A man who robbed the same La Mesa bank twice in the span of nearly 11 years was sentenced Friday to nearly six years in federal prison.
Asim Shakir Daniels pleaded guilty last year to robbing a Bank of the West in La Mesa on Jan. 4, 2022, as well as a Sun Community Federal Credit Union in the Imperial County city of Holtville a day earlier.
Daniels pleaded guilty more than a decade ago to robbing that same La Mesa bank in 2011 and was sentenced to nearly a dozen years in prison. His brother was also part of the old spree of heists, and he too was convicted of bank robbery following his release from custody.
In the latest robberies, more than $23,000 in cash was taken.
According to court documents, Daniels entered the Holtville credit union on Jan. 3, stated he was robbing “the place” and told a teller to “give me that” while pointing toward a vault. While employees were unable to open the vault, they gave Daniels $20,545 from the tellers’ drawers.
The following morning, prosecutors allege he approached a teller window at Bank of the West and said, “Give me everything!”
He demanded money from the vault, but was told the bank had no vault, court documents state, and was given $2,843 in cash instead.
Daniels was arrested later that day.
Daniels and his brother, Akil Daniels, were charged in a spree of armed bank holdups that included the 2011 La Mesa robbery.
Akil Daniels was convicted then of robbing several San Diego County financial institutions in late 2010 and early 2011, including a credit union in Chula Vista. He was sentenced to more than13 years in prison.
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, about three months after his 2022 release, Akil Daniels robbed a Poway credit union and the same Chula Vista credit union he was previously convicted of robbing.
A San Diego federal jury convicted him of the two new bank robberies, and he was sentenced last year to just over nine years in prison.
