A would-be Chula Vista bank robber has pleaded guilty to two attempted robberies, but he will not face any additional prison time as he is serving a 25 years to life sentence for strangling his cellmate.
Clinton Forbel Thinn, 31, pleaded guilty Sept. 10 before Chula Vista Superior Court Judge Francis Devaney, who set sentencing for Nov. 14. Thinn is from New Zealand and his sister is a member of Parliament in the New Zealand government.
Deputy District Attorney Jaime Thomas said afterwards Thinn will get only a concurrent sentence and not a consecutive term to run with his other sentence for first-degree murder in the 2016 slaying of Lyle Woodward, 30. Think received 25 years to life on July 26 after a jury found him guilty of first-degree murder in his retrial.
The guilty pleas last week resolve the case against Thinn when he tried to rob a Bank of America branch at Third and E Street on June 24, 2016. Remaining charges were dismissed that include three counts of attempted robbery, six counts of false imprisonment, burglary, and assault with a deadly weapon involving bank employees.
He entered the bank at 4:59 p.m. and fired an orange flare gun in which a projectile hit the wall, but no one was injured. Because the bank was about to close for the day, most of the tellers had closed their stations, and Thinn got no money.
He was in the downtown central jail on Dec. 3, 2016, when he used an old T-shirt to strangle Woodward from behind. Thinn alerted deputies that a nurse should check
Woodward’s vital signs, and deputies found him on the floor. Woodward never regained consciousness and his parents authorized life support measures be removed at a hospital a week later.
Woodward was in jail for possession of methamphetamine.
Thinn never testified but his attorney told two juries that he strangled him in self-defense because Woodward was demanding that Thinn buy him coffee from money Thinn had on his jail account.
