NEWS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Wednesday, August 1, 2007

SAGLE MAN SENTENCED FOR BANK ROBBERY
Case Hinged on Fake Bomb, DNA Evidence

A federal judge Monday sentenced 37-year-old Steven Lee Howard of Sagle to 52 months in prison for robbing the Horizon Credit Union in Coeur d'Alene on December 11, 2003.

Howard was sentenced Monday afternoon before U.S. District Judge Edward J. Lodge at the federal courthouse in Coeur d'Alene. He admitted for the first time at sentencing that he was the robber.

Howard was convicted following a three-day trial in April 2007, after jurors heard testimony that his DNA matched DNA found on a baseball cap and bandages worn by the robber and discarded in a dumpster in the parking lot of the Silver Lake Mall, where Coeur d'Alene police officers recovered it. Howard was first identified as a suspect by the car he drove. According to testimony at trial, he used a fake bomb to frighten a teller into giving him money.

The case was investigated by the FBI and the Coeur d'Alene Police Department.

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