St. Louis Man Sentenced to 12 Years in Prison for Multiple Robberies

ST. LOUIS - U.S. District Judge Henry E. Autrey sentenced a man who robbed a bank and a mobile phone store and who was foiled in another robbery to 12 years in prison.

Kentrell Jones, 42, robbed a bank in Jennings, Missouri on Jan. 20, 2022, by handling a note to a teller and implying that he had a gun. On Feb. 14, 2022, Jones tried to rob a mobile phone store on South Grand Boulevard in St. Louis by demanding money from an employee while armed. The employee foiled the robbery by fleeing into a bathroom and locking the door. He then went to a mobile phone store on Kingshighway Boulevard in St. Louis and robbed the store of cell phones and cash while armed.

Jones pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in St. Louis in August to robbery, attempted robbery, bank robbery and brandishing a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence.

Jones was previously sentenced in a 2011 St. Louis Circuit Court case to 12 years in prison for three robberies. In 2002, he pleaded guilty to four counts of felony stealing motor vehicles, felony burglary, and misdemeanor stealing and was sentenced to six years in prison.

The FBI, St. Louis County Police Department and the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department investigated the case. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Ryan Finlen and Nino Przulj prosecuted the case.