The Newport News man charged with robbing the Truist Bank in Smithfield at gunpoint in February is accused of participating in recent heists at multiple Virginia financial institutions.

Smithfield police were dispatched at 12:25 p.m. on Feb. 19 as the first flurries from a winter storm fell over Smithfield. Police said in court documents that Tyrone Jefferson Perry Jr. “displayed a firearm to two separate clerks” and received money from each before fleeing on foot toward Smithfield Boulevard, a residential area behind the bank, with an unspecified amount of cash.

“The evidence from the bank robbery has been turned over to the FBI,” Police Chief Alonzo Howell told Smithfield’s Town Council at its April 28 public safety committee meeting. “That case is being picked up by the FBI because it’s multijurisdictional, and so they will be spearheading that case for processing the evidence and moving forward with the prosecution of the robbery that occurred in Smithfield and surrounding jurisdictions.”

Lt. William Wooley, a spokesman for the Smithfield Police Department, said Perry is tied to bank robberies in Newport News and Henrico and York counties.

A bank security camera recorded a then-unidentified man, who police allege is Perry, wearing sunglasses, a black head covering and a reflective orange safety vest. According to court filings, a witness told police he saw someone matching the robber’s description walk away from a white sedan parked in the 100 block of Colonial Avenue, which connects to Smithfield Boulevard, and then reenter the sedan and leave the area within minutes of the robbery.

Court filings say the York-Poquoson Sheriff’s Office contacted the SPD to inform them a similar robbery, also involving a white sedan, had occurred Feb. 4 at a BayPort Credit Union in that jurisdiction. Flock license plate-reader cameras confirmed that the same vehicle was used in both robberies using different license plates registered to Avis Budget, a car rental company.

Police say an Avis manager told them the vehicle was reported stolen on Feb. 25 and provided the names of two suspects, one of whom was Perry, a former Avis employee.

According to court filings, Newport News police pursued the sedan on Feb. 27 but were unable to locate Perry, though they and York County investigators did find mail addressed to Perry inside the vehicle.

Wooley previously told the Times the search didn’t recover any money. Neither the court filings nor police have disclosed how much money was taken from Truist.

Smithfield police said the Portsmouth Police Department’s Fugitive Apprehension Unit arrested Perry on March 27 on a misdemeanor failure-to-appear warrant. Following Perry’s arrest, the SPD obtained its own arrest warrant and a search warrant for Perry’s vehicle.

Howell told the Town Council he was “very proud of the hours spent by the Smithfield Police Department” on this case.

“They literally started from nothing and we were able to build the case and bring about charges that will help other jurisdictions as well to bring this criminal activity to the court system,” Howell said.

Perry is charged with two counts of robbery, two counts of use of a firearm in the commission of a felony, one count of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, and one count of entering a banking house with intent to commit larceny. He remains held without bond at the Portsmouth City Jail and is next scheduled to appear in Isle of Wight County General District Court on July 31.

His past convictions, according to Newport News Circuit Court records, include guilty pleas in 2006 to felony eluding police, in 2008 to possessing stolen property and in 2012 to stealing a car.