The robberies happened quickly but were violent and “highly sophisticated,” according to San Diego prosecutors. On four occasions between 2019 and 2022, masked gunmen burst into San Diego-area bank branches, jumped over counters, forced tellers at gunpoint to open vaults, filled trash cans with cash and then disappeared in previously stolen getaway cars.

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During three of the heists, the bandits either dragged tellers by the hair or struck them with guns, leading two of the traumatized victims to never return to their jobs. The planning and violence worked as intended — whereas the average bank robber makes off with about $4,200, according to FBI data, the four San Diego-area heists netted the robbers nearly $400,000.

But the criminal success lasted only so long. Prosecutors said one man who took part in at least two of the robberies was shot to death in Lemon Grove in an unrelated incident about fives months after the final heist. And on Monday a San Diego Superior Court jury found 45-year-old Larry Lightning Jr. guilty of 29 felony counts, including charges of robbery, kidnapping and assault with a deadly weapon.

“Mr. Lightning was the leader of all of this,” Deputy District Attorney Kristie Nikoletich told the jury Monday.

Though Lightning’s court-appointed public defender said there was no evidence his client was the robbery crew’s leader, prosecutors said his actions showed otherwise. He carried out one heist by himself, and when he did work with accomplices, he was the first through the front doors and the most violent, Nikoletich told the jury.

“The testimony that came out by the victims at trial was extremely compelling, and it was evident the trauma that Larry Lightning inflicted,” Nikoletich said after the trial. “At least two of the victims thought they were going to die because he was counting down after ordering them to open up the safe. Two separate victims in two separate robberies testified that they imagined their deaths and saying goodbye to their children.”

Lightning’s attorney did not respond Friday to a request for comment.

At least publicly, the FBI and the other investigating agencies never gave Lightning and his crew one of the catchy nicknames they sometimes attach to serial bank robbers, such as the “Geezer Bandit” moniker given to a man who held up a series of banks between 2009 and 2011 while wearing a realistic mask of an elderly man.

But Lightning and his accomplices are believed to be among the most prolific bank robbers in county history.

A masked gunman exits a stolen SUV and runs toward an Escondido credit union branch during a May 2019 takeover robbery. A jury found Larry Lightning Jr. was involved in the heist with two unknown accomplices. (FBI San Diego) 

In 2019, Lightning and two accomplices stole $91,297 from a branch in Escondido. Later that year, Lightning made off with $58,383 from a branch in Scripps Ranch. In 2021 and 2022, Lightning and an accomplice stole $174,568 from a Kearny Mesa bank branch and $65,106 from a Carlsbad bank branch.

Total take: $389,355.

“It’s a staggering amount,” Nikoletich said.

The prosecutor said that a San Diego police detective testified at trial that most bank robbers demand money from a teller at a window while trying to keep a low profile. That tactic can net robbers as little as a few hundred dollars, according to court records in other local cases.

But Nikoletich, who tried the case with Deputy District Attorney Savanah Howe, told the jury that Lightning and his crew were “highly sophisticated.” She said they scouted bank branches beforehand, choosing locations without security that were close to freeways. She said evidence at trial suggested that on at least two occasions, they purposely struck shortly after armored trucks made cash drop-offs. And in the hours or days before the robberies, they stole vehicles to use as getaway cars that they were able to quickly abandon a few miles away from the crime scene.

But the stolen vehicles ultimately led to Lightning’s downfall. “It was his own DNA that eventually got him caught,” Nikoletich told the jury. She said investigators discovered his DNA in each of the stolen vehicles. Federal search warrants unsealed last year detailed how investigators then methodically poured through cellphone location records to show that Lightning was present at the right times in the areas where the vehicles were stolen, where they were staged, where the robberies occurred and where the getaway vehicles were abandoned.

The jury found that Lightning, who had previously spent time in prison on charges related to a 2010 robbery, carried out the first heist with two accomplices on May 23, 2019, at the San Diego County Credit Union branch on Centre City Parkway near West Felicita Avenue. The crew backed their stolen getaway SUV toward the front doors, then burst in with guns drawn and their faces covered. They forced a teller to open the safe at gunpoint, then filled a trash can with cash.

Nikoletich said prosecutors did not make any allegations during trial as to the identities of the other two suspects in that robbery.

Surveillance footage from a May 2019 robbery at an Escondido credit union branch shows a suspect holding a gun to a teller’s head (left), two other suspects walking through the building (center) and the first suspect walking with a gun in one hand and a trash can filled with cash in the other hand. (U.S. District Court via search warrant filing) 

The jury found that on Nov. 27, 2019, Lightning acted alone to carry out a similar heist at the California Coast Credit Union branch in a shopping center on Mira Mesa Boulevard just east of Interstate 15. But this time Lightning deployed actual violence, not just threats, when he grabbed a teller by her hair, yanked her to the ground and then dragged her by the hair toward another teller. He then put his pistol to the second teller’s head and demanded she open the vault. He later struck the second teller in the head with his gun.

Though the similarities between the first two heists were obvious at the time, authorities would not say publicly if they were related.

Then for more than two years, Lightning did not strike. But the jury found that on Dec. 9, 2021, he and an accomplice looted a California Bank & Trust branch on Clairemont Mesa Boulevard near state Route 163. Lightning again dragged a teller by the hair as he and his accomplice made off with the biggest score yet — nearly $175,000.

Surveillance images show two armed men entering a California Bank & Trust branch in Kearny Mesa in December 2021. Prosecutors said one of the suspects died in 2023 in a shooting. The other, a jury found, was Larry Lightning, Jr. (FBI San Diego) 

Nikoletich said Lightning’s accomplice made a key mistake during the crime by stealing cash from a teller drawer while Lightning was in the vault. The cash from the drawer contained two hidden GPS tracking devices. Though the bandits ultimately discovered and discarded the devices on the side of a freeway, that tracking information allowed investigators to see where the robbers switched out the getaway vehicle and where they headed immediately after, allowing them to further match up cellphone records to strengthen their case against both suspects.

The jury found that nearly a year later, on Nov. 8, 2022, Lightning and an accomplice robbed the employees at a California Bank & Trust branch on Palomar Airport Road near El Camino Real. Lightning grabbed a teller by the hair and tried to slam her head into the vault before striking her with his gun.

Prosecutors alleged in court filings and during the trial that Lightning’s accomplice during the last two robberies was Gregory Moore, who was fatally shot on March 18, 2023, in Lemon Grove. Moore was never charged. Prosecutors don’t believe the shooting was related to the robberies.

About a month later, in early May 2023, investigators obtained a warrant for Lightning’s arrest. A Riverside County Sheriff’s Department SWAT team arrested him at a Moreno Valley home.

Lightning is scheduled to be sentenced in June. He faces 25 years to life in prison on multiple counts dealing with each of the 12 victims.