Serial bank robber charged with similar crimes after his release

Last November, New Jersey native Christian Plummer was released from jail after being sentenced to two years in federal prison for robbing six banks around the Bay Area.

Within weeks, he started robbing again, according to federal prosecutors.

Now, Plummer is back in federal custody, this time charged with violating his supervised release and robbing a Wells Fargo bank in San Francisco. The robbery charge carries a maximum of 20 years in prison.

Plummer pleaded guilty last year to bank robbery, but prosecutors linked him to six robberies that netted a total of $7,900. In the case he pleaded guilty to, he was charged with robbing one bank in March 2021, just weeks after he had been released from jail for previously robbing a bank. Then, on Sept. 22, 2021, prosecutors say he bailed out of jail and robbed three more banks in the first week of October 2021.

These allegations are similar. Prosecutors say Plummer was released from jail on Nov. 22, 2022, and on Dec. 7, tried to rob a Wells Fargo on Third Street in San Francisco. During the attempted robbery, Plummer allegedly claimed he had a bomb and threatened to blow up the bank, but the teller didn't comply with his demand for money, according to court records.

Next, authorities allege that on Dec. 30, Plummer robbed a Wells Fargo branch on Geary Boulevard, handing the teller a note that said, “You know what this is,” and demanding money with no dye packs. Instead of a dye pack, the teller gave him cash outfitted with a tracking device, and police easily found and arrested him not far from the bank, according to the charging documents.

In the previous bank robbery case in which he was sentenced to two years, Plummer's attorney argued that his “desperation for money to buy food, drugs and a place to stay amidst deteriorating mental health and the influence of meth” led him to commit the robberies, and noted that it was his first criminal conviction.