PORT TOWNSEND — Kateen Fenter, a Jefferson County farming mother of three, is standing by her husband, Michael John Fentor, who is scheduled to be sentenced Monday after pleading guilty to four bank robberies.
Fenter, 41, pleaded guilty in March to three counts of bank robbery, one count of armed bank robbery and possession of a weapon during a crime of violence.
The robberies were carried out in a secretive other-life that Kateen Fenter, 38, knew nothing about.
The two had been high school sweethearts in Oregon. They had three children together — who are now 18, 15 and 12 — and had created a farm together.
She was shocked when the FBI told her he had been arrested in October. He had never had a criminal record, and she told the Peninsula Daily News in February that robbing banks was completely out of character for the man she has known for 25 years.
She had no comment after his guilty plea this spring.
“I want my husband to come home and be a healthy part of our family again,” she said Friday at the 40-acre Jefferson Land Trust-preserved Compass Rose vegetable, sheep and grass hay farm she and her mother, Bev Fairing, run today not far from Discovery Bay.
She plans to be at his sentencing, scheduled for 1:30 p.m. in U.S. District Court before Judge Benjamin Settle in Tacoma.
She firmly believes her husband — a onetime Jefferson County marine carpenter who worked on the farm owned by Kateen Fenter and her mother — will return to his family a better man.
She said it is “unfair” to imprison him for 13 years as the prosecution proposes, or even for seven years, as Fenter’s attorney has requested.
“Sometimes in our life we make huge mistakes, and we can’t take it back,” she said.
She has visited her husband in the SeaTac detention center every weekend for the past nine months, which she calls a lost period in her life.
Federal public defender Tim Lohraff believes that the prosecution’s proposed 13 years in federal prison is too long behind bars for his client, the four-time FBI-branded “John Doe bandit.”
Lohraff asked the court for a 7-year, four-month prison term after Fenter pleaded guilty to the robbery charges that included possession of a .40-caliber Glock pistol he carried on his hip but never used in the robberies.
“It’s a very unusual case,” Lohraff said.
“I think my client’s actions are very aberrant behavior in light of his life history. My client is now admitting he made a very big mistake.
“He is stepping up to take responsibility.”
Federal prosecutors, however, argue that Fenter terrorized bank employees during the heists, calmly delivering anti-government take-from-the-rich, give-to-the-poor-style rhetoric, using the name “Patrick Henry,” and threatening to blow up boxes that convincingly looked like electronic bombs.
Prosecutors say he deserves to pay, regardless of the defendant’s deep remorse or that Fenter’s criminal history begins and ends with the 2009 robberies.
Lengthy sentence appropriate
“A lengthy sentence, followed by supervised release is appropriate in this case,” U.S. Attorney Jenny A. Durkin and Gerald T. Costello, special assistant U.S. attorney, say in the government’s sentencing memorandum filed July 16.
Taking into account his wife and children being victims in the case, the prosecutors say that the victims of the bank robberies also should be considered in the sentence.
“It is wholly accurate to say the defendant terrified the victims,” the government attorneys say in the court document.
“The victims understandably feared being blow to bits or being maimed for life — along with others — by the apparent bomb the defendant carried.
“One of the victims was so frightened that she lost emotional control.”
Fenter admitted to robbing banks in Seattle, Tacoma, San Francisco and Sacramento while threatening to detonate a bomb.
A total of $159,200 was stolen from the banks.
Police recovered $73,000 outside the Tacoma branch of the Bank of America in October, when Fenter, armed with a .40-caliber handgun and a box allegedly containing explosives, was arrested after attempting to rob the bank.
Sentencing memo
The prosecutors outlined details of the offenses in the memorandum:
• On February 4, 2009, a man entered Washington Mutual Bank on 5th Avenue in Seattle carrying a black bag inside another bag bearing a Fed Ex logo, and a black briefcase.
He asked to speak privately with a bank employee at a desk away from other customers, telling the employee he had “highly explosive mater with him “that could wipe out the bank.”
He left with $9,200.
• The same man on April 15, 2009, entered Bank of America on California Street in downtown San Francisco and told a bank employee he wanted “to make a large deposit.”
He told the bank employee he was “Patrick Henry,” that he represented an organization that was angry about how the government was spending “bail-out” money and that “he intended to take the money and give it to people who needed it.”
He told the bank employee the employee and the bank “would not be in danger unless a problem occurred, while pointing to a black box that he brought with him.
“Defendant said the box contained a bomb, and that he could detonate is with a cell phone.”
The employee broke down and cried. The report said that the man attempted to calm the employee.
He gave the worker a bag containing a duffel bag and directed the employee fill it with cash, threatening to detonate a bomb if the employee called police.
He left with $43,000.
• On Aug. 24, 2009, the man entered Wells Fargo Bank on J Street in Sacramento, Calif., and, saying his name was Patrick and he wanted to open an account, asked to speak to the bank manager.
He opened a box and showed the bank employee “a white colored material in the shape of a brick that was attached to a circuit board with wires. An antenna protruded from the brick, too.”
He said partners outside the bank could detonate the bom.
He demanded all the money in the vault, except the coins.
The man complimented the employee for remaining so calm “and said that the money was to start the cause,” leaving with $34,000.
• On Oct. 8, 2009, Fenter entered the Tacoma 9th Street Bank of America, telling a bank employee “he wanted to conduct a large transaction.”
He was carrying a black box and a black duffel bag and opened the box so the employee could see inside.
The employee “saw an antenna about four or five inches long, a red colored item and some wires.”
Fenter told the employee he had a “triggering device” and said he had a partner who could set off the device. He did not use the word “bomb” but the employee “was convinced he possessed a bomb.”
“He said the robbery was not about the bank, but about a fight against the government.”
As one employee placed $73,000 in Fenter’s bag, another called police.
Fenter was arrested by Tacoma Police officers at gunpoint a short distance away from the bank.
Tacoma Police Bomb Squad experts blew apart the device that consisted of a commercial grade blasting cap, ordinarily used to detonate explosives such as dynamite, using an electric current.
A battery was part of the device but it was not wired to the blasting cap.
‘Independent thinking’
Lohraff says in court records that Fenter “has a strong streak of independent thinking,” is a history student and has also “identified with those who have defended the constitutional freedoms we enjoy in this country today, as exemplified in the Bill of Rights.”
“He is a man who is not afraid to take a stand in support of his principles,” Lohraff says.
Fenter graduated from the Northwest School of Wooden Boatbuilding in Port Hadlock and he worked on the America’s Cup boats in 2006.
A craftsman who worked with Fenter described Fenter as “a committed family man, devoted to his wife and children” who likes to laugh, is easy company and gracious.
“I would trust him with my possessions, with my personal safety, and with my friendship,” said Thomas George, who worked alongside Fenter.
It was those commitments and principles that led he and his wife to choose a life of sustainable community farming and live and work on the Compass Rose, Lohraff said, saying that Fenter “strives to live his life in a positive fashion in accordance with his philosophy of libertarianism and freedom”
Meanwhile, his wife keeps the farm together and waits.
“When you are 75 percent of the other person, you can’t walk away and leave yourself,” she has said.
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Port Townsend-Jefferson County Editor Jeff Chew can be reached at 360-385-2335 or at jeff.chew@peninsuladailynews.com.
