SAN DIEGOSAN DIEGO — A man who served time in federal prison for a series of armed bank robberies is suspected of robbing an Imperial County credit union and a La Mesa bank branch this week — the same location he pleaded guilty to targeting a decade earlier, according to court documents.
Federal prosecutors on Wednesday charged 36-year-old Asim Shakir Daniels, a resident of Brawley in Imperial County, with one count of robbery stemming from Tuesday’s heist in La Mesa. The criminal complaint, filed in U.S. District Court in San Diego, also identifies Daniels as the suspect who allegedly robbed more than $20,000 from a teller on Monday at a credit union in Holtville, a 25-minute drive from Brawley.
Court documents show Daniels pleaded guilty in 2012 to four federal charges related to an armed bank robbery spree between 2010 and 2011. One of the banks he held up at gunpoint in March 2011 was the Bank of the West branch near Grossmont Center in La Mesa — the branch where he’s accused of robbing two tellers on Tuesday.
In Daniels’ previous robbery case, his brother and co-defendant — Akil Saeed Daniels, who was convicted in 2013 of several robbery charges — was also accused of robbing an employee at the same La Mesa Bank of the West branch in January 2011.
After Asim Daniels’ arrest Tuesday, La Mesa police and San Diego FBI officials would not confirm if he was a suspect in the previous day’s robbery in Holtville, though they said they were investigating his potential involvement in “other robberies.”
In a probable cause statement included in the complaint, FBI Agent Jesse Chappell wrote that “based on this individual’s appearance, clothing, and method of operation, I believe the bank robber at Sun Community Federal Credit Union (in Holtville) to be Daniels.”
It was not immediately clear Thursday why prosecutors did not charge Daniels in the Holtville case. An attorney who represented Daniels in his previous robbery case was assigned Thursday to again represent him, but declined to comment because he had not yet met with his client.
According to Chappell’s probable cause statement, the Holtville robbery occurred around 11 a.m. Monday. The robber walked into the credit union, told a teller he was “robbing the place” and pointed to the vault, telling the employee to “give me that.” Though the credit union employees were unable to open the vault, they handed over the money in their drawers — $20,545.
The next day at the Bank of the West in La Mesa, the robber told a teller “give me everything” and demanded money from the vault, according to Chappell. The teller told the robber the branch didn’t have a vault; the robber demanded money from a drawer.
Two tellers handed over about $2,840 in cash to the bandit, Chappell wrote. La Mesa police said the robber made his demands while “simulating that he had a firearm,” and was seen fleeing toward Grossmont Center.
As La Mesa police officers arrived to the mall, several witnesses told them the suspect was inside the Target just across Center Drive from the bank branch, La Mesa police Lt. Katy Lynch said. When officers spotted a man inside the store who matched the suspect’s description, he took off running.
Officers eventually took the man, later identified as Daniels, into custody near the Chuze Fitness on the south side of the mall, Lynch said. While arresting him, they recovered the money allegedly stolen from the bank.
Court records showed that after Daniels pleaded guilty in 2012 to the bank robbery spree, a judge sentenced him to 11 years and nine months in federal prison, plus five years of supervised release. It was unclear when Daniels was released from prison.
