Donovan brothers plead guilty to New Hampton bank robbery

The Donovan brothers — Cory 24, and Micah, 22 — of Laconia, who were among four men charged with the robbery of Franklin Savings Bank in New Hampton in February, have both entered guilty pleas in United States District Court.

Corey Donovan yesterday pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit bank robbery, bank robbery and using, possessing and brandishing a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence. Conspiracy carries a maximum penalty of five years and bank robbery of 20 years while the sentence for the firearm charge ranges from seven years to life imprisonment. Earlier this year Micah Donovan pleaded guilty to conspiracy, aiding and abetting the robbery and possessing a firearm in relation to a crime of violence, charges with similar penalties of between five years and life imprisonment.

Micah Donovan is scheduled to be sentenced on December 17 and his brother Corey in February, 2008. Both men have been held at the New Hampshire State Prison since they were arrested in May.

Ian Burns, 22, of Gilmanton and Jay Lawrence,43, of Meredith also face multiple charges for their alleged roles in the bank robbery. Two other men, one of them a juvenile, who confess to participating in the robbery, were not named in the indictment.

According to an affidavit filed with the court by Special Agent Brian Keefe of the FBI, information provided by informants as well as two witnesses, who themselves took part in the robbery, enabled law enforcement officers to identify the suspects and gather the evidence required to make the arrests and file the charges.

The bank was robbed shortly after 1 p.m. on Friday February 23. Witnesses reported that a man, later identified as Corey Donovan, dressed in green camouflage, black gloves and full-face black helmet and carrying a rifle entered the bank, jumped on to and over the counter and, holding the women tellers at gunpoint, ordered them to put cash into a blue backpack. Donovan made his escape on a red snowmobile seen parked behind the bank before the robbery. Officers from the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department tracked the snowmobile to a wooded area on Old Bristol Hill Road where it appeared it had been loaded on to another vehicle.

In his affidavit Keefe states that four days after the robbery an anonymous caller fingered Corey Donovan as the bank robber. That same day Keefe, said that he and New Hampshire State Trooper William Cantwell spoke with a man who told them that Corey Donovan had three accomplices in the robbery, only two of whom were known to him. The man said he first heard of the robbery on February 21, two days before it took place, when he spoke with Corey Donovan about getting a snowmobile motor for his friend Jay Lawrence. Donovan told the man that he was planning to rob a bank.

The next day, Keefe's affidavit continues, the same man met Corey Donovan at his apartment on Pleasant Street in Laconia, where he again spoke of robbing a bank and escaping on a snowmobile. He said that he had three or four guns to "pull this thing off." The man said that Lawrence arrived and Corey Donovan told him of his plan, saying that he needed a place to leave the snowmobile. "No problem," Lawrence allegedly said. "Bring it over to my home."

The man told the officers that in the evening after the robbery, Corey Donovan came to his home "all pumped up" and watched a television report of the robbery, He told the man that he paid two lookouts and a driver $1,000 each. That same evening Lawrence called the man to say that Corey Donovan offered to loan him cash for child support to be paid to the Belknap County Sheriff's Office.

Two days later, on February 25, the man reported that Corey Donovan and one of his accomplices arrived at his home looking for Lawrence. Donovan said that the child support money had been traced to the bank, prompting the accomplice to say "oh no, we're gonna get caught, we're gonna get caught."

On March 3, after a 10-hour standoff, Corey Donovan was arrested on warrants for simple assault and violating probation when officers of the Belknap Special Operations Group found him hiding in the attic of the stately home on Pleasant Street where he rented an apartment. Officers found green camouflage clothing, a camouflage ballistic vest, a full-face helmet, black gloves and work boots along with 22 twenty-dollar bills.

Meanwhile, Keefe said that after reviewing the surveillance tapes a representative of Kel Tec CNC, a firearms manufacturer, identified the rifle as a Kel Tec Sub 2000 folding carbine. Police confirmed that Ian Burns purchased a Kel Tec Sub 2000 at Abe's Awesome Armaments in New Hampton last July.

In April two "confidential witnesses," identified in Keefe's affidavit as CW#1 and CW#2, admitted they participated in the robbery, bringing the number of suspects to six. They said that two men acted as lookouts and another two waited with a van at Old Bristol Hill Road to collect the snowmobile while Corey Donovan robbed the bank. They said that Corey Donovan readied for the robbery in the wooded area on Old Bristol Hill Road. They said that he dressed in the camouflage and loaded two firearms, the rifle and a pistol, then went to the bank on the snowmobile.

According to the affidavit, both witnesses said that when Corey Donovan returned, the snowmobile was loaded into a van and all five men, in two vehicles, went to Lawrence's home in a Meredith trailer park. There the witnesses said that the proceeds from the robbery were counted and distributed, with each of Corey Donovan's five alleged accomplices receiving $1,000. CW#1 said that Lawrence placed the two guns in a closet and that the backpack was burnt in a woodstove.

CW#1 recalled that Lawrence asked the other men how long they had known one another. Told they had known one another their entire lives, he said, “good, because in a bank robbery you want to trust everybody and tell the same story and watch each others backs.”