Man imprisoned for 2 bank holdups

BENTON -- A federal judge says a 23-year-old Indiana man should spend more than 38 years in federal prison for robbing two southern Illinois banks.

Jacob Messic of Evansville, Indiana, pleaded guilty in August in federal court in Benton to two counts apiece of armed bank robbery and brandishing a firearm during a crime of violence.

The government says Messic stole more than $28,000 in robbing the First Neighbor Bank in the Clark County town of Casey in July of 2006. He then got more than $15,000 in a holdup of the Elkville State Bank in Jackson County the next month.

A co-defendant, Rodney Messic, has been sentenced to 41 years in the holdups. It isn't immediately clear if and how the Messics are related.