Reserve bank heist leads to prison for Pittsburgh man

A Pittsburgh man has been sentenced to nearly six years in prison for robbing a bank in Reserve last year.

Authorities say Mark Laughner, 38, entered the Dollar Bank on Mount Troy Road on May 16, 2024, and demanded the bank’s large bills.

When the teller handed him $100 and $50 bills from her cash drawer, Laughner demanded more money and threatened to shoot her in the face, federal prosecutors said.

He left with $1,370 in cash.

Although Laughner wore a baseball cap and neck gaiter pulled over his nose and mouth, authorities said they were able to identify him through witnesses and surveillance recordings.

Four days later, Allegheny County Police spotted Laughner in the passenger seat of a vehicle outside of a Pittsburgh fire station.

Prosecutors said when police approached with their emergency lights on, the driver got out and Laughner jumped behind the wheel.

Laughner drove in reverse and “came within inches” of striking two detectives before stopping the car and running away, authorities said. Police found him hiding in thick bush.

On Oct. 8, 2024, a federal grand jury indicted Laughner on one count of unarmed bank robbery. He pleaded guilty in March.

U.S. District Judge Cathy Bissoon sentenced Laughner Thursday to 70 months in jail, followed by three years of probation. He also must repay the bank the money that he stole.

The sentence “is an escalation in the severity of penalties imposed on the defendant and accounts for his recidivism,” Acting United States Attorney Troy Rivetti wrote in a sentencing memorandum.

The bank teller and the bank’s branch manager agreed the sentence was “a fair and just resolution to this case,” Rivetti said.

Laughner had previously been arrested in connection with other thefts and a robbery, court records show.

In 2008, an Allegheny County Common Pleas judge sentenced Laughner to 11½ to 23 months incarceration on a theft charge, according to court records.

Five years later, the same judge sentenced Laughner to two to five years in prison after he pleaded guilty to robbery, theft and simple assault.

Laughner was imprisoned in June 2013 at State Correctional Institution Houtzdale, a 2,200-inmate prison in Clearfield County, Maria Bivens, a state Department of Corrections spokeswoman, told TribLive.

Laughner was paroled in 2021.

In January 2024, Laughner pleaded guilty to receiving stolen property and was sentenced to three years’ probation, court records show.

In April, a judge sentenced Laughner to three years’ probation after he pleaded guilty to fleeing from a police officer and resisting arrest.

Allegheny County Police and the FBI conducted the investigation into the Reserve Township bank robbery.