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SALT LAKE CITY — The man who picked up the nickname "Double Hat Bandit" during a bank robbery spree that spanned almost a year and reached seven states has pleaded guilty to 18 robberies, authorities said.
In a plea agreement signed Friday in U.S. District Court in Salt Lake City, Shayne Carson, 54, of Albuquerque, New Mexico, admitted to four robberies apiece in Utah and Oregon; three each in Colorado and Washington; two in Iowa; and one robbery each in Idaho and Ohio.
Carson was arrested in Indiana in September for the spree that started in October 2016, according to a statement released Wednesday by the U.S. Attorney's Office in Salt Lake City, which is prosecuting the case.
"The majority of the robberies took place at banks inside grocery stores and involved a man wearing two hats," according to the statement.
During most of the robberies, Carson either told tellers he had a gun or passed them a note that claimed he had a gun. In a few, he brandished what looked like a handgun, according to the plea agreement.
Law enforcement authorities believe the handgun Carson showed to bank tellers was "not a real firearm," the statement said.
In the plea agreement, Carson admitted to receiving from about $800 up to about $8,400 in each of the 18 robberies.
Carson will serve a stipulated sentence of at least 12 years but no more than 15 years behind bars, according to the deal. He will also be ordered to pay an amount of restitution to be decided at Carson's sentence hearing, scheduled for Aug. 15 in Salt Lake City.
The statement went on to say that "FBI special agents did excellent work in solving a difficult case with assistance from an FBI analyst in New Mexico," explaining that local and state law enforcement agencies in many states helped with the investigation.
