A father and son who tried to create a long-vanished family bond by starting a life of crime together are now on their way to prison – likely to never see each other again.
On Thursday, United States District Judge William S. Duffey Jr. sentenced the father, Clifford Durham, 39, to 50 years and eight months in prison for his role in a string of robberies, including an April 2011 bank robbery.
The son, Deangelo Jackson, 23, who testified Wednesday at his sentencing that he participated in the robbery to gain the approval of his long-absent father, was sentenced to 16 years and two months in federal prison for his role in a violent, but bungled, bank robbery. Duffey said he would recommend that Jackson be placed in a prison close to Atlanta, but did not make the same concession for the father.
They were charged with armed attempted bank robbery, armed commercial robbery, and using and carrying firearms during crimes of violence.
“The true tragedy is that [Durham] caused his son to follow his criminal path and now has to spend his adult life in prison,” Duffey said in sentencing Durham on Thursday.
Originally scheduled to be sentenced on Wednesday, Duffey called Durham and his attorneys back to court on Thursday to get the exact details of his sentence ironed out. A lifelong felon, he had recently done eight years in prison for possession of a firearm. Two years were added to that when prison guards caught him with smuggled items.
That was the father figure that Jackson saw when Durham was released from prison in 2007.
At Jackson’s hearing Wednesday, his family and attorney tried to portray him as a victim of his father’s manipulations. Even before the bank robbery, Jackson had participated in a robbery of a sandwich shop where a man was shot.
Given a chance to speak, Jackson said he longed for Durham’s approval and withered without it. He claimed that he only participated in the bank robbery after being asked three times.
“I wanted him to accept me as a son,” said Jackson, 23. “I turned him down twice and he started to fade away from me. He stopped answering my text messages and phone calls. One day, I was like, I would do it.”
On April 15, 2011, Durham, Jackson and two others — Rashad Marquiz Rogers and Mark Anthony Zanders II — allegedly set out to rob the Wells Fargo on Clairmont Road near I-85 in DeKalb County. Three of the men went in while Durham waited outside as the getaway driver.
But the bank job proved problematic. The bank was full. Bank officials refused to open the safe. The three panicked and fled. It was the middle of the day and they ran into traffic. When stopped by police, a gun went off.
No one was hurt, but they all escaped, only to be captured the next day. It was then that the FBI pieced together a connection to a November 2010 robbery of Williams Cheesesteaks in Stone Mountain, where the owner’s son was shot and wounded by Durham.
Theodore Spencer, who was involved in the restaurant robbery, got six years and 10 months in prison. Authorities claim that Jackson and Spencer, who worked at the restaurant, planned the heist and recruited Durham.
So while sympathetic, Duffey said Jackson was ultimately responsible for his own actions – especially since he committed two robberies.
“Both occasions could have resulted in people losing their lives. We are holding him accountable today,” Duffey said. “I have an acute view of who you are and you are dangerous.”
Assistant U.S. Attorney Nekia Hackworth also found it hard to believe that all of Jackson’s decisions were completely coerced.
She said Jackson was an aggressor at the bank.
“He said, ‘Open that bank door or I am gonna start killing people,’” Hackworth said. “When he went, he went hard.”
For their roles in the bank robbery, Rogers was sentenced to 13 years and 10 months and Zanders got nine years and eight months in prison.
Jackson sat quietly through most of Wednesday’s hearing. His grandmother, an uncle and two aunts sat quietly in the courtroom. His mother, who now lives in Germany, sent in a video statement.
They all portrayed a different person than the one on trial. Stephen Hudson said his nephew was a good kid who never knew his father.
He said when Durham was released in 2007 Jackson started spending time with him. He noticed little changes. Jackson stopped helping Hudson tend to his yard, now devoting most of his time to his father.
“Knowing his background and how he was raised, I never thought in a million years that we would be here today,” Hudson said. “But he grew up without a father. You could see the hurting in his life, the void. Here is a young man who needed to be validated by a father.”
Shakira Hudson begged the court for “mercy, grace and favor.”
“I disagree that he made a conscious decision,” she said. “I truly believe he was mentally insane, because he was longing for his father all his life.”
While Wednesday’s sentencing was emotional, Thursday’s sentencing of Durham was quick and technical. He sat quietly next to his attorney and never said a word. No family members spoke on his behalf.
While Duffey said that Jackson is still young enough to have a life to look forward to when he is released, at 39, Durham is likely to spend the rest of his life in jail, even if he doesn’t reach the end of his sentence.
His attorney testified Thursday that he is suffering from an aggressive form of cancer called multiple myeloma, which has a low survival rate.
“Overall, this is a very sad story,” Hackworth said.
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