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Jurors found Jose Soto, 52, of Passaic guilty of robbing a PNC branch in Passaic of $35,000 and a Valley National Bank in Little Falls of $45,000 following a six-day trial in U.S. District Court in Newark.
They also convicted Soto of conspiring with a Paterson man to commit the holdups and brandishing a firearm.
Soto pointed a silver and black gun at customers and employees at the Main Street Valley National branch in Little Falls on Feb. 27, 2020, authorities said.
His accomplice, Nicholas Ortiz, then "jumped over a teller counter and began rifling through various drawers," a complaint on file in federal court in Newark says.
The robbers then forced the bank employees at gunpoint to open the vault before grabbing cash, forcing everyone into the vault and fleeing out the back door, it says.
Investigators said identified Ortiz as the owner of the getaway car from that robbery while tracking both men's cellphones to the vicinity.
Three weeks earlier, two robbers wearing ski masks and holding umbrellas entered the PNC Bank at the corner of Broadway and Van Houten Avenue in Passaic and ordered everyone to get down on the floor.
Soto pointed a silver and black handgun at customers and employees, while an accomplice jumped the counter and demanded that the teller turn over all cash in the drawers.
Investigators identified Soto as the owner of the getaway car from that robbery. They also placed his phone in the area.
A federal grand jury in Newark subsequently indicted both men.
U.S. Attorney for New Jersey Philip R. Sellinger announced the verdict against Soto without addressing Ortiz other than to call him a conspirator.
U.S. District Judge William J. Martini scheduled Soto’s sentencing for Feb. 23, 2023.
Sellinger, meanwhile, credited special agents of the FBI, as well as police from Passaic and Little Falls, the Passaic County Prosecutor’s Office, the Passaic County Sheriff’s Department, and the Paterson Police Department, for the investigation leading to the conviction, secured by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Emma Spiro and Mark J. Pesce of his Criminal Division in Newark.
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