John Jefferson
Left: Clifford Uptegrove robbing a bank (U.S. Department of Justice). Right: Uptegrove in a booking photo (Umatilla County Sheriff’s Office).
A Washington State man entering his golden years will also enter the confines of federal prison after admittedly robbing at least 11 banks — the last of which was robbed after he had been granted compassionate release from a prior punishment for the same type of crime.
Clifford Court Uptegrove, 61, pleaded guilty to armed bank robbery in April. On Thursday, he was sentenced to spend the next 280 months behind bars — which equates to 23 years and four months. In sum, the sentence is more or less a compromise between the 25 years requested by federal prosecutors and the 20-year sentence the since-condemned man’s defense attorney asked the court to impose.
The defendant was most recently arrested on Dec. 17, 2021, after robbing a Umpqua Bank branch in Hermiston, Oregon. He pulled out a gun and demanded large bills before making off with $13,690 in cash and then trying to steal a truck, according to a press release issued by the Oregon U.S. Attorney’s Office. Soon thereafter, Uptegrove was spotted by a local police officer, briefly gave chase, eventually gave in, and was arrested without further incident.
“Maybe you shouldn’t rob banks,” U.S. District Judge Marco A. Hernandez told Uptegrove during his sentencing hearing on Thursday, according to a courtroom report by The Oregonian.
The court’s wry reprimand appeared to be a specific reference to a recorded conversation between the bank robber and his sister, days after the robbery, while detained in the Umatilla County Jail.
“Don’t rob banks with drive-through windows,” he told her during the second such phone call. “Both times I did that, I got caught.”
In response, Uptegrove’s sibling offered her ailing brother the following piece of sisterly advice: “How about just don’t rob banks?”
That final bank robbery occurred roughly 14 months after Uptegrove was granted pandemic-era compassionate release over a combination of his age — he was 57 at the time of the leniency decision — and a medically-diagnosed asthma condition which put him at advanced risk for contracting COVID-19, federal prosecutors said.
In November 2020, U.S. Senior District Judge Marsha J. Pechman said there were “extraordinary and compelling” reasons for Uptegrove to spend time outside of prison walls. In addition to medical concerns that jibed with pandemic era fears, the court also cited his generally good record of behavior as an inmate — including the completion of several custodial betterment and educational programs.
His disciplinary record, however, was not spotless. While he served 16-and-a-half years of a prior sentence for armed bank robbery after being convicted in 2004, only the last 9 years were free of any infractions. Still, the track record impressed the judge in Seattle.
But the man was apparently incorrigible.
Clifford Uptegrove robbing the bank in question (U.S. Department of Justice).
During his likely final bank robbery, the defendant pointed his handgun at a teller and shouted: “Give me all your f—— money … large money, all the $100s … All of it,” according to a 15-page sentencing memorandum filed by federal prosecutors on Sept. 11.
On Jan. 19, 2022, a federal grand jury sitting in Portland handed up a three-count indictment charging Uptegrove with one count each of armed bank robbery, possessing a firearm during a crime of violence, and possessing a firearm as a convicted felon.
“I’m responsible for the things that I’ve done,” Uptegrove reportedly said in court this week. “I don’t have an excuse.”
He added that his actions on the day in question “made him sick,” according to the newspaper.
Still, in a bid for late-stage leniency in terms of sentencing, the bank robber’s defense lawyer offered a product-of-his-environment defense during the Thursday hearing. Attorney Lisa Ludwig said her client’s father “raised him to rob banks and do drugs.”
The defendant’s aforementioned sister echoed that understanding of her brother’s hard life. She told the court that their alcoholic father gave her beer when she was 3, began injecting Uptegrove with drugs when he was 12 years old, and did in fact, teach him how to rob banks, according to The Oregonian.
Ludwig also said her client, a heroin user, was under the influence of drugs when he robbed the bank in Hermiston — a fast-growing, medium-sized city just south of the Washington State line.
While expressing a bit of sarcasm and acknowledging the bank robber’s issues with drugs, the judge also upbraided Uptegrove for what he had done on the day in question.
“People that get guns put in their faces, they don’t care about what caused that,” Hernandez told the defendant. “That doesn’t matter to them what your problem was.”
In addition to the bank teller, Uptegrove also pointed his gun at a retired couple in a failed bid to hijack their pickup truck.
“Their sense of security is forever violated,” the judge went on. “They’re terrified. They’re terrorized … And that simply doesn’t go away.”
A restitution hearing for Uptegrove’s victims is slated for Dec. 19.
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