Former Army Ranger has 20 years added to sentence | Crime

Luke Elliot Sommer, 23, formerly of Peachland, British Columbia, Canada, was sentenced in U.S. District Court in Seattle to an additional 20 years in prison and a $25,000 fine for Assault with a Deadly Weapon and Solicitation of a Crime of Violence.  Sommer’s total sentence in now 44 years in prison. 

According to the plea agreement, on two occasions in March 2009, Sommer offered an undercover FBI task force officer as much as $20,000 for murdering an Assistant United States Attorney.  Sommer moved forward with the plot telling the undercover officer he wanted news reports of the hit to reflect that it was “murder not an accident.”

Additionally, on January 23, 2009, Sommer used a prison-made knife to attack a co-defendant in the bank robbery case.  The two men were to be housed separately at the Federal Detention Center at SeaTac, but Sommer schemed to get to the other man’s prison unit with the weapon.  Sommer attacked the other inmate, fighting until the two were pulled apart by staff.  Sommer continued to yell and threaten the safety of the victim.  Although the victim suffered a minor stab wound and multiple abrasions, neither man had to be hospitalized.

Sommer was sentenced to 24 years in prison on December 12, 2008, for Conspiracy to Commit Armed Bank Robbery, Armed Bank Robbery, Brandishing a Firearm During and in Relation to a Crime of Violence, and Possession of an Unregistered Destructive Device – Hand Grenade.

He also was the mastermind of the August 7, 2006, robbery of a Tacoma branch of Bank of America.  Five men, including Sommer, participated in the robbery.  Two were armed with fully automatic AK-47 machine guns.  Sommer and another man carried loaded semi-automatic hand guns.  The men wore soft body armor to protect themselves in case of a shoot-out with police and carried hundreds of rounds of extra ammunition.  Sommer told the others that he wanted to use the proceeds of the robbery to start a crime family to rival the Hell’s Angels in British Columbia, Canada.  

The men escaped with more than $50,000, but were quickly tracked down and arrested thanks to an alert citizen who noted the license plate of the getaway car.