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Source: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Man gets 40-year sentence for robbery

The "Man" in the headline should alert you to this individuals immigration status.

Waukesha - A man who robbed a bank in downtown Waukesha in April and traded gunshots with police during an unsuccessful getaway attempt was sentenced Wednesday to 40 years in prison.

Nicolas Navarrete, a father of two who told police he got the robbery idea from a television show that led him to believe it would be an easy way out of his money woes, was sentenced by Waukesha County Circuit Judge Lee S. Dreyfus Jr. after a prosecutor and defense attorney assessed the holdup in starkly different terms.

"When I look at the circumstances, it would be difficult for me to overstate how serious this was," District Attorney Brad Schimel told Dreyfus, highlighting that after his arrest, Navarrete admitted trying to kill the officers attempting to capture him. "After the chase was over, he was going nowhere, but he continued firing wildly."

But defense attorney Anthony Rosario said Navarrete hatched the ill-fated idea to rob a bank he visited regularly on a morning when he had downed whiskey for breakfast while depressed over unemployment and medical bills of more than $60,000 for his wife's cancer treatment.

"He walks into a bank where almost everybody knows him to rob it," Rosario said. "It just makes no sense at all."

Rosario added that Navarrete donned his wife's wig before marching into the bank, but it did nothing to disguise him.

"To see him standing there with this wig on is almost laughable," Rosario said of photos taken of his client by bank surveillance cameras. "One of the bank employees said, 'What is Mr. Navarrete doing with that silly wig on?' " *Snip*

Schimel said in court that Navarrete also fired at Officer Harold Moilanen after he pulled his squad car in front of the fleeing bank robber and raced ahead to warn other motorists of the imminent danger. Navarrete attempted to kill Officer David Arndt by firing at him, Schimel said. *snip*

In the end, Dreyfus agreed with Schimel's characterization of the robbery, noting that Navarrete took with him that day a cocked and loaded 9mm pistol with 40 rounds of ammunition.

"The only reason to do that is in the event you have to use it," Dreyfus told a weeping Navarrete, who begged to be returned to his native Mexico after learning his fate, a request Dreyfus said he could not legally accommodate.

H/T Vdare

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