Bank Robber Sentenced to Federal Prison

MEDFORD, OR—John Edward Perdue, 54, of Grants Pass, Oregon, was sentenced today to 151 months in federal prison for committing two bank robberies in Grants Pass. During the February 21, 2013 robbery of the Umpqua Bank, Perdue, with his face partially concealed by a hooded sweatshirt, rushed through the front door and went behind the service counter where the teller was on the telephone with a customer. Perdue tapped her on the shoulder and ordered her to get off the phone and unlock the drawer at her teller station. Perdue grabbed money from the drawers and fled the bank with $10,580. The teller told detectives that she felt “panicked” and “surprised,” fearing that if she did anything contrary to what he was asking, he might harm her.
During the April 1, 2013 robbery of the Bank of the Cascades, Perdue entered the bank and again walked behind the service counter, ordering the male teller to get on his knees and not get up. Perdue emptied the money from the male teller’s drawer. Perdue then ordered a female teller to unlock an adjoining drawer, but when she was unable to open it, he removed money from the drawer at her station. As Perdue was leaving the bank, he dropped some of the cash and scrambled around on the floor trying to pick up as much as he could before fleeing with $8,612. The teller told detectives that she was scared during the ordeal due to the excited manner in which Perdue was acting and how he was ordering them around. This was the second time Perdue had robbed this same bank while she was employed as a teller. That robbery occurred in 2008.
According to sentencing documents filed by AUSA Byron Chatfield, Perdue was previously convicted in 1996 for committing two other bank robberies while he was an escapee from the Oregon Department of Corrections. He was sentenced to 87 months in prison for those robberies. He also received additional state sentences for the escape, as well as subsequent sentences for weapons possession and an attempted escape from the Oregon State Penitentiary. Thereafter, within a month of his release from custody, Perdue committed two additional bank robberies, one at the Bank of the Cascades in Grants Pass in 2008 and the other at the U.S. Bank in Roseburg, Oregon. Perdue was sentenced to 28 months in state prison, as well as additional 24 month consecutive sentence in federal prison. Perdue has been incarcerated for committing criminal offenses for much of the last 20 years and he committed the current bank robberies less than a year after his release from custody.
Senior U.S. District Judge Owen M. Panner sentenced Perdue as a career pffender, which enhances the sentence for commission of a serious violent felony after two or more convictions for other serious violent felonies. Perdue was also ordered to pay $19,192 in restitution to the banks.
This case was investigated by the Grants Pass Department of Public Safety and the FBI in Medford, Oregon, and prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Byron Chatfield.