A trans woman pled guilty to two indictments of robbery this week and received two consecutive 15-year prison sentences — the maximum sentences allowed — for robbing two banks in Alabama and Mississippi in 2019.
Iconic Facce, who held a prior conviction for robbing a bank prior to her transition in 2009, will spend the next 30 years behind bars.
Related: Gay congressman survives attempted robbery when bodyguards shoot one of the attackers
Facce walked into a BancorpSouth branch in Gulfport, Mississippi on March 22, 2019, passing the teller a bag and handwritten note that read, “you have 1 min to give the money do not be wrong are [sic] die.” She took the money and then instructed the teller to pass the note and a bag to another teller and repeat the process. She did not show a weapon or say she had one during the robbery.
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At the time of the robbery, Facce showed signs of undergoing recent cosmetic surgery on her face, which included noticeable swelling of her lips.
Mere days after the robbery, Facce flew to Mexico from Huntsville, Alabama and underwent further surgery there. She returned to the U.S. and was arrested on arrival in Houston on March 30, 2019. She had bandages covering her face when she was apprehended, according to the Sun-Herald.
Geolocation technology using her phone put Facce near the bank during the robbery and going to Alabama in the next two days. Police connected her method of crime upon her arrest, being nearly exactly the same series of events that she committed that led to her previous conviction for robbery in 2009.
In that robbery, she passed a note to a teller of a Alabama Credit Union, demanding that they give her money or harm would come to the teller. When she committed this robbery in 2007, she was out on bond for another robbery she had committed earlier that year in Tennessee.
“No games, no jokes, and get your hands up,” Facce’s note from the second 2007 robbery read. “Don’t mash any alarms. Don’t move, or she gets it.”
Facce received a four-year prison sentence at the time, in addition to three years of probation and mental health treatment. She would later challenge this conviction on the grounds of an ineffective attorney. Her challenge was denied because her attorney complained she wouldn’t comply and claimed that Facce had “gender identity issues.”
Facce also faces accusations of robbing banks in Georgia and Texas in December 2007 as well. She was arrested in Los Angeles after returning from Mexico at that time as well, apparently also after receiving surgery.
Authorities believe that Facce needed the stolen money for cosmetic surgeries on her face and skin, in addition to transition-related health care.
