SALEM – A Lynn man who admitted being the getaway driver in a stolen car during a bank robbery last year was sentenced to two years in state prison.Charles Robert Smith Jr., 32, of 7 Clarendon Ave., #1, changed his innocent plea to guilty Monday morning in Salem Superior Court on charges of unarmed robbery and larceny of a motor vehicle.He was sentenced to serve two years in state prison by Judge Timothy Q. Feeley, who agreed to adopt the joint recommended punishment proposed by Assistant District Attorney Jean M. Curran and defense lawyer Joseph F. Collins.Curran stated she was prepared to introduce evidence at trial showing that on the afternoon of Nov. 20 Smith and another man stole a white Oldsmobile Cutlass from the Loring Towers parking lot in Salem and drove to the Salem Five Cent Savings Bank at Vinnin Square in Swampscott.The other man, later identified as Stanley G. Carter, III, 28, homeless, walked into the bank located at 450 Paradise Road wearing a curly wig and passed a note to the female teller demanding cash and fled from the bank with an undetermined amount of money.Police found the stolen car, driven by Smith, abandoned at the Jewish Rehabilitation Center on Paradise Road.Curran acknowledged the recommendation was on the “lighter side,” but it was based on the fact that Smith didn?t commit the robbery.Carter, who is also charged with robbing an Eastern Bank in Lynnfield two weeks later, remains held in custody awaiting trial. He is due back in court on Dec. 28.
