Fifth Third bank robbery

Rodney Johnson Jr., who robbed Fifth Third Bank in Cleveland Heights in December 2013, was sentenced today to nearly 12 years in prison. Investigators identified Johnson after he posted a photo posing with cash on Instagram.

(File photo)

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- A bank robber captured after he posted a picture of himself with stolen cash on Instagram will spend nearly 12 years in federal prison.

Rodney Johnson Jr., 22, and Laron Lloyd, were charged in the Dec. 7, 2013 robbery of the Fifth Third Bank in the 12000 block of Cedar Road in Cleveland Heights.

Johnson brandished a silver revolver and the pair made off with $6,701 in cash, according to an affidavit.

Johnson was arrested four days later after the FBI and Johnson's probation officer in a separate case matched an Instagram photo with bank surveillance photos.

Johnson confessed to his part in the robbery during an interview. He pleaded guilty in September to armed bank robbery and brandishing a firearm.

"I didn't intend any harm. I just got caught up in the moment," Johnson said during his hearing Monday morning.

U.S. District Judge Donald Nugent handed down the 141 months sentence during a hearing Monday morning. The judge also ordered Johnson to repay the amount he stole from the bank as restitution. Once he is released from prison, Johnson will be on supervised release for three years.

Johnson and his family asked Nugent for leniency. His aunt, Beverly Johnson, said that he is a smart man who would never hurt anybody. He also suffers from abandonment issues due to problems with his parents, she said.

"He really just hasn't had a chance to grow up," Beverly Johnson said.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Justin Seabury Gould disputed these claims, noting that Rodney Johnson was released from prison in September 2013, just three months before he robbed the bank.

He served a four-year prison term on aggravated robbery and charges in a previous case.

Nugent noted Monday that Johnson's guilty plea and his accepting responsibility lessened the amount he will serve. But the judge took note of Seabury Gould's comments, and said that that putting a gun in somebody's face can be traumatizing.

"You just don't know the effect that it has on the people that are around," Nugent said.

Lloyd, 18, was sentenced in August to five years in state prison by Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court Judge Lance Mason.

Nautica Merritt, Johnson's girlfriend who drove the car from the robbery, was sentenced to two years in federal prison by Nugent.

The same group of people is connected to a Nov. 22, 2013 robbery at Ohio Savings Bank in the 2000 block of Lee Road in Cleveland Heights. Seabury Gould said after the hearing that Lovell Briggs provided the same revolver – which was known as "The Judge" – to both crews.

Briggs pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting an armed bank robbery and brandishing a firearm during a crime of violence. Nugent sentenced him to 10 years in prison in November.

Seabury Gould also said investigators believed that a third robbery at First Merit Bank on Severance Circle on Dec. 3, 2013, was also related, but charges were never filed.