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By the Salina Journal

TOPEKA -- A serial bank robber linked to 15 robberies, including one in Salina where he fired a shot from a handgun into a cabinet, was sentenced Friday to 16.5 years in prison, according to a news release from U.S. Attorney Barry Grissom's office.

Albert Lawrence Vaughan, 41, of Loveland, Colo., was convicted in March in U.S. District Court in Topeka of one count of armed bank robbery and one count of discharging a firearm during a crime of violence.

On Oct. 15, 2004, Vaughan robbed the First Bank of Kansas, 1333 W. Crawford. Evidence at his trial also showed that on Oct. 2, 2004, Vaughan brandished a similar firearm while robbing the Bank of Colorado in Grand Junction, Colo., in an identical fashion.

Law enforcement had tied Vaughan to bank robberies in Colorado, Wyoming, Nevada and Utah, and he was a suspect in six other robberies.

In the Salina robbery and several others, Vaughan rode a bicycle from the bank to his car, where he loaded it into the vehicle and escaped to a nearby interstate highway.

At the Salina robbery, Vaughan displayed a small-caliber handgun, demanded money, then fired the gun into a file cabinet that was behind the bank counter, police said. He fled with an undisclosed amount of cash, riding a bicycle west toward Cherokee Street.

Investigators think Vaughan's first bank robbery was March 3, 2003, in Loveland, and his last one was May 2, 2005, in Boulder, Colo. He allegedly struck in Las Vegas five times.

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