The Associated Press

BATON ROGUE - A former Lake Charles lawyer has been convicted of participating in a bank robbery ring.

U.S. District Judge John Parker on Thursday found Eddie L. Stephens, 55, guilty of conspiracy, bank robbery and using a firearm. He could be sentenced to life in prison.

Stephens had the judge hear the case rather than a jury. He will be sentenced later following a background investigation.

Federal agents arrested Stephens sitting in a car behind a Bank One in Baton Rouge after thwarting a planned holdup there in December 1998.

He also was accused of robbing a former City National Bank branch of $13,310 in July 1998, a Bank One of $24,144 that August and a Whitney National Bank of $21,395 that October, all in Baton Rouge.

Authorities testified that Stephens and three other men wore clear masks with pink rosy cheeks, carried pistols and used a stolen get-away car.

Two of Stephens' accomplices, William Bernard Turner and Cleveland Golden, testified against him. Both pleaded guilty in exchange for counts against them being dismissed.

Golden faces a 10-year federal sentence after he completes a seven-year sentence on unrelated state charges. Turner has not yet been sentenced. A third alleged accomplice committed suicide during a standoff with police following a later robbery, prosecutors said.

Stephens is a former law partner of Wilford Carter, a state district judge in Lake Charles. He was suspended twice by the Louisiana Supreme Court from practicing law in the early 1990s and disbarred in 1998.