Posted at 11:07 a.m., Friday, October 26, 2001

Air traffic controller bank robber pleads guilty

Associated Press

OAKLAND, Calif. — A San Francisco air traffic controller with Hawai'i ties pleaded guilty today in a string of bank robberies carried out by a stocky holdup man dubbed the Robust Robber.

Rick Lee Davis, 43, the president of the traffic controllers' union local, had been struggling with personal and financial problems when he went on the crime spree.

He pleaded guilty to six counts of bank robbery and could get up to 120 years in prison at sentencing Feb. 15.

Davis was arrested Aug. 3 after nine Bay Area-bank robberies over 10 months. Police said he made off with $40,000.

Davis had worked an air traffic controller at the San Francisco airport since 1998, making $98,000 a year. In 1996, he was seriously hurt when his car hit a cow in Hawai'i. He later divorced and filed for bankruptcy.

Davis has said that he took to robbing banks to pay for gifts for his two teenage sons and entertain them when they visited from Hawai'i.