TACOMA, Wash. -- A bank robber wanted in five states was convicted in federal court of holding a bank manager and his family hostage to gain entrance to a small bank and plunder the vault.
Joseph Dougherty, 47, was found guilty Friday by a jury of bank robbery, taking hostages, carrying a firearm and using threats to interfere with interstate commerce.
He is to be sentenced Tuesday by U.S. Judge Robert Bryan.
Dougherty and Terry Lee Conner, 43, were wanted on bank robbery charges in five states when they were captured separately last December. Conner's trial began Friday before U.S. Judge Jack E. Tanner.
The two men escaped in 1985 from prison in Oklahoma City while being transported to court.
The government has accused Doughtery and Conner, 43, of holding Raymond Deering, 45, his wife, Verona, and their two sons, Tom and Ed, in their home near Orchards, Wash., the night of June 30, 1986.
Deering was taken to First Independent Bank north of Vancouver the next day and forced to open the bank. The robbers stole $266,576 from the vault.
The two also are accused of bank robberies in Milwaukee, Eugene, Ore., and Oklahoma City, all of which involved holding bank managers' families hostage with automatic weapons the night before the robberies.
Dougherty has also been charged in a $277,000 bank robbery in Phoenix and a $106,900 robbery in Reno, Nev., and both he and Conner were charged with a $25,000 bank vault robbery in Bountiful, Utah.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Portia Moore called the robbery in southwest Washington a 'terrorist act' and said Dougherty was linked to the crime by fingerprints found on a cup at the Deering home and on a cashier's check stolen from the bank.
Dougherty's attorney aruged his client was the victim of mistaken identity. The defendant refused Bryan's order to cut his hair and shave to make himself more easily identifiable to witnesses. He also refused to supply samples of his handwriting.
Before their arrests -- Dougherty in California and Conner in Chicago -- the pair were on the FBI's '10 Most Wanted' list and a similar list by the U.S. Marshal's Service.
The two men escaped custody June 19, 1985, as they were being transported from federal prison to court in Oklahoma City.
