A serial bank robber with a sideline as a crime novelist could be back in federal prison before his next book comes out. Dorian Trevor Sykes, who completed his most recent sentence in February last year, is accused of robbing two banks in the Detroit area this month, NBC News reports. Police say the 41-year-old made off with $10,169 from the Credit Union One in Sterling Heights on March 6 and stole $3,400 from the Chase Bank in Lathrup Village on March 12. In the Chase robbery, Sykes allegedly handed the teller a note reading, "Give me all the money ... I have a gun ... I will kill everyone in here."
Sykes has written numerous crime novels, including The Good Life, King of Detroit, and Born to Die, which is due to come out in May. Carl Weber at the Urban Books publishing house in New York told the Detroit News that Sykes' books tend to sell around 2,500 copies. Asked if he was a big success as a writer, Weber said, "He's pretty small fry, to be honest. He wouldn't be in this situation if he was." Police say Sykes fled the Credit Union One robbery in his black Mercedes and used a rented Rolls-Royce as a getaway car after the Chase robbery. He was arrested Tuesday.
In 2020, Sykes was sentenced to five years in federal prison for two bank robberies he carried out on Aug. 12, 2019. In a sentencing memo, Assistant US Attorney Frances Carlson said Sykes robbed the banks "just six weeks after being released from a 17-year prison sentence for the same type of behavior." His "history paints a troubling and unmistakable picture of a person who has a complete disregard for the law," Carlson wrote. "Sykes has demonstrated by his unabated criminal behavior that he will not be deterred by restrictions and conditions placed upon him by the courts or by lengthy prison sentences." If convicted of the latest robberies, Sykes could be sent back to federal prison for 20 years. (More bank robbery stories.)
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