A Connecticut woman who admitted to robbing a Bangor bank and Dollar Tree last Memorial Day weekend was sentenced Monday to 33 months in federal prison for her role in the crimes, which were motivated by drug addiction.
Cara M. Blewitt, 31, of Oakville, Connecticut, also was sentenced to three years of supervised release and ordered to pay $600 in restitution. Police recovered $300 from the robberies.
“Your case is a modern day American tragedy,” U.S. District Judge John Woodcock said in sentencing her.
Two years ago, Blewitt, a college graduate, was managing a TD Bank in Connecticut, the judge said. She owned a house and had a retirement account but also was stealing from the bank to feed her and her husband’s opioid addictions, Woodcock said. In April 2017, she was fired.
“Your decision to take drugs and abuse them turned your life into a truly catastrophic whirlpool,” the judge said.
Cara Blewitt pleaded guilty on Oct. 11 to aiding and abetting a bank robbery and interference with commerce by robbery, according to court documents. Her husband, Seth J. Blewitt, 30, pleaded guilty on Nov. 30 to bank robbery, interference with commerce by robbery, and using a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence.
Seth Blewitt is scheduled to be sentenced on April 11 in U.S. District Court in Bangor. He has been held without bail since the two were arrested by Bangor police on May 29, shortly after the Dollar Tree robbery.
Cara Blewitt was on bail between August and October undergoing treatment for opioid addiction. Since then, she has filed for divorce, her attorney Logan Perkins of Belfast, told the judge Monday.
The Blewitts described themselves to Bangor police as heroin users who spent the $500 they got in the bank robbery on heroin. Cara Blewitt said they targeted a TD Bank because she’d worked as a manager at a branch in Connecticut and was aware of their policies and procedures regarding robberies, court documents said.
By pleading guilty, both Blewitts admitted that their short-lived crime spree began at about 12:40 p.m. on Sunday, May 28, 2017, when Seth Blewitt robbed the TD Bank on Stillwater Avenue while his wife waited in their gray Volvo station wagon in the Walmart parking lot nearby.
The next day, Seth Blewitt walked into the Dollar Tree on Stillwater Avenue at about 4 p.m. with a sawed-off, 12-gauge shotgun, according to the court documents. He left the store with $400 from the register and got into the car, again driven by his wife.
Cara Blewitt apologized for her actions and said she would like to continue her education and become a drug counselor once she completes her sentence.
The maximum sentence for each robbery is 20 years in federal prison and fines of up to $250,000 for each robbery. In addition to that same punishment, Seth Blewitt faces an additional seven years to life in prison for the use of the sawed-off shotgun in the Dollar Tree robbery.
Perkins recommended that Woodcock impose a two-year sentence.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Todd Lowell recommended that Cara Blewitt spend three years in prison. He said Monday that Seth Blewitt most likely will be sentenced to at least 10 years behind bars.
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