Missouri lawyer pleads guilty to bank robbery

WARRENTON, Mo. -- A 64-year-old lawyer and businessman who already had admitted to robbing three banks pleaded guilty Tuesday another bank heist and to shooting a Missouri trooper.

Warren Gladders of Wentzville pleaded guilty to five felony charges in Warren County Circuit Court in the September armed robbery at the First Bank of Marthasville. He was charged with stealing $43,000 from the bank and then firing four shots at a Missouri State Highway Patrol trooper. The trooper, who was shot in the chest, was wearing a bulletproof vest and was unharmed.

Gladders had pleaded guilty Monday in U.S. District Court in St. Louis to stealing $7,000 from a Creve Coeur bank in July 2013 and $5,000 from a Weldon Spring, Missouri, bank one month later, as well as the Marthasville bank robbery. Under the plea agreement, federal prosecutors are recommending a 25-year sentence, in addition to a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years to run consecutive with the longer term. He could have faced up to life in prison.

Defense attorney Timothy Joyce said he expects the sentence in that case to run concurrent with the federal sentence.

Court records do not indicate what prompted Gladders to turn to a life of crime, and his attorney and family would not discuss details of the case. Until his arrest, Gladders was president of Apex Laundry and Dry Cleaning Equipment Co. in St. Louis County. He asked the Missouri Bar in 2012 to have his license classified as inactive and it complied, according to the organization.

Public records show Gladders grew up in the affluent St. Louis suburb of Ladue, Missouri, and graduated from the exclusive John Burroughs School. He graduated from Colgate University in upstate New York and the Washington University School of Law.

Gladders is due back in state court in early September and in federal court in October.

------

Follow Alan Scher Zagier on Twitter at http://twitter.com/azagier