Noel bank robber dies in prison

Wednesday, April 10, 2013

GRAVETTE - A Noel man, convicted in 1992 in connection with the Oct. 6, 1989, robbery of the Noel State Bank, died March 5 in Bunter Federal Prison in North Carolina, according to Federal Bureau of Prison records.

Joseph A. Agofsky was convicted in U.S. Court in Springfield of conspiracy to rob a federally insured bank, aggravated armed robbery of a federally insured bank and use of a firearm during the commission of a federal crime of violence.

He was charged along with his brother, Shannon Wayne Agofsky, 42. Prosecutors said the brothers kidnapped bank president Dan Short from his Arkansas home, forced him to open the vault of the Noel State Bank, where he was president. Approximately $71,000 was taken in the robbery.

Each brother was sentenced to life without parole and an extra 60 years. The convictions and sentencing were upheld by the U.S. Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit, in April 1994. Rehearings were denied on two occasions in May that year.

Shannon Agofsky was subsequently convicted of the murder of Short and again sentenced to life without parole, after the jury was deadlocked and the sitting judge decided the sentence.The prosecution alleged he and his brother used duct tape to strap Short to an old wooden kitchen chair, weighted it down with a logging chain and cement blocks, then tossed him off the Highway 10 Bridge over the Elk River arm of Grand Lake near Grove, Okla.

Joseph Agofsky was tried for the murder, but his case ended with a hung jury.

Shannon Agofsky is currently on death row in an Indiana prison after a federal conviction of the murder of a fellow inmate in the federal prison in Beaumont, Texas, in 2005.

The brothers for a few months prior to the crime operated a martial arts business on Gravette Main Street.

News, Pages 6 on 04/10/2013