The Elkins man accused of strapping a fake bomb to a woman’s ankle before she entered a Fayetteville bank pleaded guilty Friday (Sept. 6) to eight felony charges in the incident, records show.
Paul Lewis Bradley, 61, was sentenced to 50 years in the Arkansas Department of Correction, according to the sentencing order.
Bradley entered the pleas before Circuit Judge William Storey, the order states. By entering the guilty pleas, he will avoid a trial.
The charges include: three counts of theft, residential burglary, two counts of robbery, kidnapping, and being a felon in possession of a firearm.
Last year Bradley pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Fayetteville to one count of being a felon in possession of a firearm, said District Judge Jimm Larry Hendren.
The federal firearms charge is separate from the felony charges in the bomb incident in which police say Bradley tried to extort a woman by forcing her to withdraw money from an Arvest Bank on West Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. The apparent bomb strapped to the woman was fake, and no one was injured.
The following account from CNN details what occurred during the bank incident:
Authorities in Fayetteville arrested Bradley three days after 73-year-old Betty Davis walked into a bank and told a teller she had a bomb fastened to her ankle.
Her husband, Dean Davis, said at the time he has known Bradley for some time.
Washington County Sheriff Tim Helder told reporters Bradley strapped the phony bomb onto Betty Davis and took her to the bank to force her to withdraw money from her account. Once inside, she told a teller about the plot and that she had been followed to the Arvest Bank branch.
“I felt like I needed to get out of that bank and get everyone out of danger,” Betty Davis said. “If he did what he said he was going to do, he would blow it up and hurt all those people.”
After Betty Davis talked to police, they went to the couple’s home and found Dean Davis tied up, police said.
The assailant wore a mask and said little, so the couple was unable to identify their attacker at first.
“I would have never imagined that of him and never thought he would do something like that,” Dean Davis said.
