A federal judge has sentenced a North Las Vegas man known as the "scarf-face" robber to 14 years in prison.

U.S. District Judge Lloyd D. George sentenced Lonnie Troy, 36, to the prison term, after Troy pleaded guilty in February to two counts of interference of commerce by robbery and one count of brandishing a firearm in commission of a crime of violence.

On December 30, 2009, Troy robbed a Metro PCS store on North Pecos Road in Las Vegas, and on December 31, 2009, Troy robbed a Circle K convenience store on Valley View Boulevard in Las Vegas.

During both robberies, which occurred around noon, Troy wore a hooded jacket, gloves, and a black scarf over the bottom half of his face, and brandished a chrome-plated long-barrel .45-caliber revolver. As Troy left both stores, he wished the clerks, "Merry Christmas."

Troy has three prior felony convictions, including a 2007 federal conviction for unlawful firearms possession.

The case was investigated by the FBI Safe Streets Task Force, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, and the North Las Vegas Police Department, and prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Nicholas D. Dickinson and Phillip N. Smith, Jr.

The case was brought under DOJ's Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN) initiative, a nationwide commitment to reduce gun and gang crime in America. Since the fall of 2010, a Southern Nevada PSN Task Force has focused its efforts on the prosecution of persons committing commercial robberies using a firearm. Since then, seven criminal cases have been charged in federal court for such offenses. Troy is the first defendant from those seven cases to be sentenced.