ORLANDO, Florida — A Baltimore man has pleaded guilty to robbing a bank because he ran out of money for a movie he was filming in Florida.
United States Attorney Roger B. Handberg announced that Nacoe Ray Brown, 54, faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in federal prison for the bank robbery offense. A sentencing date has not yet been set.
According to the plea agreement and other court documents, Brown was previously convicted of robbing three banks in the Baltimore area in 2001.
After a federal jury convicted him of the robberies, he was sentenced to 25 years in federal prison. In 2020, Brown was granted an early release from prison. Brown then began serving his term of supervised release under the U.S. Probation Office in Baltimore.
On June 28, 2022, while visiting Florida, court documents show Brown robbed the McCoy Federal Credit Union in Belle Isle. Wearing a baseball cap, sunglasses, a surgical style facemask, and plastic gloves, Brown passed a note to the teller threatening that he had a gun and demanding money.
Officials say a witness watched Brown flee the bank and enter a nearby gas station where he had a change of clothes staged. The witness reported this to the Belle Isle Police Department, who quickly responded and located Brown at a hotel where he was staying.
After Brown was arrested, he told authorities that he committed the bank robbery because he was filming a movie in Florida and had run out of money to pay for the production, officials say.
This case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Belle Isle Police Department. It is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Michael P. Felicetta.
This case is part of Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN), a program bringing together all levels of law enforcement and the communities they serve to reduce violent crime and gun violence, and to make our neighborhoods safer for everyone.
