Government asks for 15-year sentence for Anderson man who robbed Great Southern Bank on Rangeline

Citing a 45-year criminal history, the government is asking for a 188-month sentence for Vincent Gepson, 65, who pleaded guilty June 29 to the May 9, 2022 armed robbery of Great Southern Bank on Rangeline in Joplin.

In a sentencing memorandum filed today in U. S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri, Assistant U. S. Attorney stressed Gepson's lifelong defiance of the law.

Gepson's sentencing is scheduled for 10:30 a.m. Thursday in Springfield.

It is readily apparent from the defendant’s lengthy criminal history that he has been unwilling or unable to live within the confines of the law for his entire life. Given the defendant’s abject refusal to obey the law or the directives of the court, a lengthy sentence is warranted.

   The details of the bank robbery were spelled out in the memorandum:

On May 9, 2022, at approximately 10:30 a.m., an individual, later identified as the defendant, Vincent Gepson, entered the Great Southern Bank, located at 1232 South Rangeline Road, Joplin, Missouri. The defendant approached the teller counter, informed the teller that he had a gun, and demanded cash. The defendant then provided the teller with a plastic Walmart bag, into which the teller placed $1,000.00 in United States Currency. The defendant exited the bank via the front entrance and made good his escape. 

Members of the Joplin Police Department (JPD) arrived on scene shortly after the commission of the robbery and obtained surveillance footage from the robbery. Still photographs were posted on JPD’s social media pages requesting assistance in identifying the bank robber. 

Within an hour after the posting, two members of the public called JPD and identified the defendant as the perpetrator of the robbery. Later the same day, an employee of R and R Tire called JPD, also identified the robber as the defendant, and further advised that he had come to his shop shortly after the robbery and paid $227.00 for services previously rendered by the shop. 

On May 11, 2022, an acquaintance of the defendant, was interviewed by FBI Special Agent Stacy Moore. He reported that the defendant paid him $500.00 in cash for a trailer on May 9, 2022. 

Agent Moore examined the currency that the defendant used to make payment and determined that one of the twenty-dollar bills was a bait bill taken during the robbery of the Great Southern Bank.

Predicated upon the identification of the defendant as the perpetrator of the bank robbery, a warrant for the defendant’s arrest was by this Court on May 10, 2022. The defendant was ultimately apprehended in Acadia Parish, Louisiana, on May 20, 2022.

The memorandum then detailed Gepson's criminal history:

The defendant has an extensive criminal history, continuing virtually unabated for the better part of the last 45 years. The defendant, as result of his criminal lifestyle, has spent a significant portion of his adult life in prison. At the time of the offense, the defendant had been out of the custody of the Bureau of Prisons for less than two years. 

The defendant’s criminal history is replete with serious violations of law. 

In 1979, the defendant suffered his first felony conviction for burglary, yielding a 60-day term of imprisonment. 

The defendant’s criminal behavior significantly escalated in 1986 when he committed an armed robbery of a gas station, resulting in a five-year term of imprisonment. 

On April 9, 1998, the defendant was sentenced to federal prison for the first time after being convicted of possession with intent to distribute cocaine. The defendant was finally discharged in 2006 after returning to prison on two occasions for violating the terms of supervised release. 

Just two years after his release, the defendant went on a crime spree, committing robberies in multiple jurisdictions, resulting in a 140-month term of imprisonment. Just months after being released, the defendant violated the terms of supervised release and was sentenced to an additional 10-month term.

He was discharged from the Bureau of Prisons on April 30, 2020. 

The defendant currently has four active warrants pending for his arrest in three different jurisdictions.