An Omaha man’s admission to robbing a Sioux City bank was his last strike and he’ll spend the rest of his life in a federal prison. Fifty-four-year-old Richard Allen Shaffer admitted to walking into a Sioux City bank on October 12th and handing a teller a note that said he had a gun and wanted money.
He fled with around $3,700, and the clothes he wore and the note were later found at his girlfriend’s home. Shaffer robbed the Sioux City bank after he was released from federal prison for six 2004 bank robbery convictions. Those were all considered one felony crime, but a review found Shaffer had convicted in a United States Army General court-martial in 1979 of unpremeditated murder and served 18 years in prison.
The Sioux City robbery made it the third felony and triggered the three-strikes law and the life sentence.