Ex-Security Guard Given 8 Years for Record Armored-Car Robbery

A former security guard was sentenced Monday to eight years in prison for masterminding the largest armored-car robbery in U.S. history. The court found that the man’s son and a friend had been coerced into participating and sentenced them to shorter prison terms.

Robert W. Jasinski, 52, of Boonton, told U.S. District Judge Garrett Brown Jr. that he expected no mercy for himself, but he asked for leniency for his son, William, 22, and William’s friend from military school, Bryan Smals, 20, of Columbus, Ohio.

The two younger men were sentenced to five years each.

Jasinski worked as a guard for the Coin Depot Armored Car Co. He was arrested in January, 1989, about three weeks after two armed men in police uniforms got away with $4.5 million from a Coin Depot truck during a delivery to a bank in Clifton, N. J.

A third accomplice, Ronald Stromp, is a locksmith with a criminal record who had been a friend of Jasinski for several years. He was not sentenced Monday because federal authorities failed to send him from prison to the courthouse. Stromp’s sentencing was rescheduled for today.