PEABODY – An East Boston man has been sentenced to serve 110 months imprisonment followed by five years of supervised release for the armed robbery of a Peabody bank in 2009.According to investigators, two armed and masked men walked into the Sovereign Bank in Peabody on Sept. 18, 2009. One of the robbers, later identified as Brian J. Febonio, 42, climbed over a teller’s counter and began ransacking cash drawers while showing a gun.As Febonio emptied the cash drawers, the other robber, Michael J. Peters, pointed his weapon at the other employees and ordered them to the ground. Both men then stuffed the money, later determined to be $26,433, into a black nylon bag and ran from the scene.An employee of the bank later told investigators that the robbers got into a black sedan, which was eventually recovered and determined to have been purchased by Febonio the day before the robbery.Febonio was identified by witnesses from the bank’s video surveillance and an arrest warrant was issued resulting in Febonio’s capture a few days later in a New Hampshire motel.Information linking Peters was seized from Febonio’s motel room and an arrest warrant was also issued for Peters, who was subsequently taken into custody.Febonio pleaded guilty to the charges last fall. As part of the sentence, Febonio will be on supervised release for five years and was ordered to pay $26,433 in restitution. In September, Peters was sentenced to 108 months imprisonment to be followed by five years of supervised release.The case was investigated by the FBI’s Violent Crimes Task Force, the New Hampshire State Police and the Peabody Police. It was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Kenneth G. Shine of United States Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz’s Major Crime Unit.
