Uzi-Wielding Bank Robber Sentenced

A Paulsboro man who brandished an Uzi when he robbed a Deptford bank will spend the next 13 years in prison.

Warren Christopher Davis, 32, of the 200 block of West Broad Street, Paulsboro, admitted in Feburary to holding up The Bank in Deptford on May 9, 2011. He was sentenced Monday.

Davis’s robbery—carried out with accused accomplice Dwayne Tribbett, who was later shot and killed by police in a separate incident—unfolded much like a Hollywood drama. The pair wore masks and Davis brandished an Uzi-style submachine gun and ordered everyone to the floor during the robbery.

The men stole $10,000 in the holdup, and then went to the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Philadelphia, where they stayed two nights, but skipped out on the tab. Davis was on the lam until July 1, 2011, when he was arrested. Tribbett was killed 11 days later in a separate crime.

The ordeal traumatized the bank’s staff, prosecutors said.

One former bank employee described the turmoil she’s suffered as she went from an active life to a “sleepless, jobless and insecure existence,” in a letter read in court by Assistant Gloucester County Prosecutor Temperance Williamson.

“I surely felt my life was over that day,” said the former 16-year bank worker. “The happy person I was disappeared.”

Davis apologized before sentencing for his act of “ignorance.” He pleaded guilty to the robbery in February and on Monday was sentenced to 13 years in prison. He must serve 85 percent, or about 11 years, before he’s eligible for parole. The sentence will run concurrently with a four-year term for burglary and parole violation he’s already serving.

Davis isn’t a first-time offender. He was previously convicted for unlawful possession of a weapon, receiving stolen property, burglary and criminal restraint. He was charged with robbing The Bank, on Park Avenue in Deptford and now known as Fulton Bank, while in jail on another charge.

Davis’s codefendant Tribbett, of Woodbury, was shot and killed by police when he attempted to rob a check-cashing service in Lindenwold on July 18, 2011.

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