NORTHAMPTON — With her crying family members on one side of the courtroom and crying bank tellers on the other, a Holyoke woman waited for a judge to determine her sentence Tuesday after she admitted holding up a credit union with a toy gun last summer.
After pleading guilty in Hampshire Superior Court to a charge of armed robbery, Vivian Poreda, 59, stood clutching her cane while her husband, Michael, sat in the court gallery with other relatives, crossing his fingers so intensely, his hands shook.
“I understand the defendant’s had issues,” Judge Daniel Ford said. “In many ways, she’s the author of her own woes.”
And with that, Poreda was sentenced to three to five years in state prison. She received credit for 49 days already served.
Police said Poreda, who donned rubber gloves, a gray T-shirt and a Chicago Bulls baseball cap, walked into the Freedom Credit Union, 226 King St., the morning of June 11 last year and handed a note to an employee: “$50,000. Nobody gets hurt. Got gun.”
Poreda displayed what staff thought was a real gun and made off with about $7,000, police said. She was subdued by authorities moments later in a nearby parking lot.
Poreda told investigators she robbed the credit union because her family fell on hard financial times
In court Tuesday, attorneys came to the plea hearing with two different sentencing recommendations for the judge.
Poreda’s attorney, Korrina Burnham, of Northampton, argued that the Holyoke woman was in the midst of losing her home when she made the decision to hold up the bank, displaying a cap gun.
“This is someone, in her life, who has had to fight to survive,” Burnham said in court. “At some point, the financial pressure became overwhelming.”
She continued, “I understand she’s potentially ruined a lot of people’s lives, but if she’s taken away, her family’s lives may be ruined.”
Citing health issues for both Poreda and her husband, Burnham recommended six years of probation including the first two served under house arrest.
Ford turned to Poreda. “Why did you do this?” he asked.
“It was like a blackout. I didn’t realize I was doing something so horrible,” Poreda said, barely audible as she addressed the judge. “I had no other place to turn. I was so concerned with providing for everyone.”
But Assistant Northwestern District Attorney Jayme Parent said in court that Poreda was well aware of what she was doing. The prosecutor argued that even though Poreda did not physically harm anybody, she was capable of recognizing the emotional harm she inflicted on the bank staffers. Some sat in court at Tuesday’s hearing.
“We had a scene where an entire branch of a credit union were terrified,” Parent said. “There were tellers who thought they weren’t going to leave there that day.”
Saying that she understood Poreda was up against hard times, Parent recommended four to six years in state prison.
“But many people have difficult lives and do not rob banks,” she said in court.
Contact Michael Majchrowicz at mmajchrowicz@gazettenet.com.