Cape Cod Incidents/CWN
TISBURY – A Connecticut man was sentenced yesterday in federal court in Boston for his role in a Martha’s Vineyard bank robbery.
Romane Andre Clayton, 22, of New Haven, Conn., was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge William G. Young to four years in prison, to be followed by three years of supervised release. In September 2024, Clayton pleaded guilty to one count of aiding and abetting bank robbery. In March 2023, Clayton was indicted by a federal grand jury and a superseding indictment was filed in April 2023.
Clayton met Omar Johnson, Tevin Porter and Miquel Jones in Martha’s Vineyard on Nov. 16, 2022 to plan a bank robbery. Jones identified the bank they would be robbing and provided the others with dark-colored clothing and plastic masks that resembled an elderly man with exaggerated facial features. On the morning of Nov. 17, 2022, the group drove to the area of the Rockland Trust Bank in Tisbury. Porter, Jones and Johnson hid in bushes near the rear of the bank, and Clayton drove their car to the Manuel Correllus State Forest. Clayton then rode a bicycle back to the bank, where he stood outside to serve as a lookout during the robbery. Clayton had a walkie talkie to communicate with the others inside the bank.
As bank employees arrived to open the bank for the day, Porter, Jones and Johnson forced their way through the rear door of the Rockland Trust Bank in Tisbury. The men were armed with two semi-automatic handguns and wearing the clothes and masks that Jones had provided. Once inside the bank, one of the individuals held a gun to the head of one of the bank employees, forced the employee to open the bank’s vault and took approximately $39,100. The bank employees were bound with duct tape and plastic zip ties while their belongings were searched and the robbers demanded access to one of their vehicles.
Jones, Porter and Johnson then left the bank in an employee’s car, picked up Clayton outside the bank and drove to the Manuel Correllus State Forest where they abandoned the employee’s car in a parking lot. They then fled in the vehicle that Clayton had
