FARMINGTON — Kevin Dean Rasband was an internal auditor for the Davis County Clerk-Auditor’s Office in 2017 before quitting under a cloud and robbing two banks, desperate to cover huge gambling losses. Now he’s going to federal prison for seven years.

U.S. District Judge Ted Stewart sentenced Rasband last week in Salt Lake City on two counts of bank robbery and one count of brandishing a firearm during a crime of violence. Rasband, 36, had pleaded guilty in return for dismissal of a second gun charge.

Charging documents said Rasband ambushed a Goldenwest Credit Union employee in Kaysville as she opened the business on Feb. 11, 2017. He followed her into the vault and left with $23,000. He robbed the Utah First Credit Union in Farmington on March 29, 2017, escaping with a bag of cash, which had a dye pack inside that soon exploded.

A sentencing memo filed by his federal public defender said Rasband became addicted to gambling in 2014 and three years later had experienced crushing losses of more than $100,000. He drained his 401(k) retirement fund and began deceiving the clerk-auditor’s office by showing up at work in the morning, driving to Wendover to gamble the rest of the day, and returning to Farmington at quitting time.

But after the county opened a time card fraud investigation against him, he quit. The defense memo said Rasband thought he could solve his gambling debt problem by making a big score, so he took the Kaysville loot to Wendover. He lost it all.

The sentencing memo said that after the second robbery, Rasband drove to Las Vegas, then phoned his wife, saying he planned to kill himself for all the lies he had told and for bringing them to financial ruin. She talked him out of suicide and he returned to Utah to turn himself in.

As his problems spun out of control, “Instead of seeking help and trying to change, like many addicted people with substance abuse disorders, Mr. Rasband found new ways to lie and deceive to get what he wanted,” the memo said.

In the end, he was sorry for his crimes, which featured “innocent tellers being terrorized,” the defense memo said.

The federal public defender recommended Rasband be sentenced to no more than 84 months in prison, based on his lack of a prior record and his rehabilitative steps since arrest. Letters of support for Rasband included correspondence from his father-in-law and brother-in-law, both law enforcement veterans, and his bosses in the Weber County Jail inmate services detail.

Stewart followed the defense’s recommendation, but added three years of close supervision after Rasband completes his prison term. The judge also recommended that Rasband serve his sentence at a medium-security prison camp in Colorado. Rasband also must pay $23,000 in restitution.

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