Fort Smith bank robber sentenced for spring heist

FORT SMITH — David James Howell was sentenced in Sebastian County Circuit Court on Wednesday on an aggravated robbery charge in a Fort Smith bank robbery last spring.

Circuit Judge Stephen Tabor sentenced Howell to 35 years with 15 years suspended after he pleaded guilty to the charge.

Howell, 48, also was sentenced in U.S. District Court in Fort Smith on Tuesday to 10 years in prison for robbing the bank. Court records showed the sentence will run concurrently to the sentence on the state charge.

According to court records, Howell entered the Bancorp South Bank at 3117 Grand Ave. on May 2, demanded money and told the teller he had a gun. A federal plea agreement with Howell on a bank robbery charge said he told the teller “don’t make me use this gun, here,” and he stuck his hand in his pocket as if going for a gun.

The teller gave him money and he left. The state’s aggravated robbery charge listed the bank teller as the victim of the robbery.

Howell was arrested shortly afterward outside a restaurant on Rogers Avenue when someone recognized him and called police, court records said. The officer found him sitting on a bench with a backpack stuffed with more than $2,800.

Howell also had been sentenced in July in circuit court to 48 years in prison because the aggravated robbery charge constituted a violation of suspended sentences he received on three earlier felony convictions for failing to register as a sex offender in 2008, and for robbery and theft charges in 2010, according to court records.