Mount Pleasant bank, Ottumwa credit union robber sentenced

DAVENPORT ? Ryan Nicholas Zasareti, age 22, of Charleston, Ill., was sentenced Friday to 57 months imprisonment in connection with three bank robberies in southeast Iowa, announced United States Attorney Nicholas A. Klinefeldt.

United States District Judge John A. Jarvey also sentenced Zasareti to three years supervised release following imprisonment and ordered payment of restitution to the victims.

On April 9, 2010, Zasareti and his co-defendant, Morris Thompson, robbed the Community First Credit Union in Ottumwa. A few hours later, the pair robbed the Wayland State Bank in Mount Pleasant. On Aug. 17, Thompson alone robbed the PNC Bank in Louisville, Ky., and on Sept. 16, Zasareti and Thompson again robbed the Wayland State Bank in Mount Pleasant.

Shortly after the Wayland State Bank robbery on Sept. 16, an Iowa State Patrol trooper observed a suspicious van eastbound from Mount Pleasant and recorded the license number. Detectives learned through the van?s registered owner that Zasareti and Thompson had borrowed the van. After evidence from the bank robbery scenes linked Zasareti and Thompson to the robberies, they were arrested in Central Illinois. Thompson?s arrest involved a high-speed vehicle chase and foot pursuit.

The Ottumwa and Mount Pleasant police departments, the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, investigated this case. The case was prosecuted by the United States Attorney?s Office, Southern District of Iowa.

Thompson is scheduled to be sentenced in August.