A Haverhill man was sentenced to probation yesterday in federal court in Boston for robbing a branch of Santander Bank in Boston. At the time of his arrest, the defendant was on probation for a prior bank robbery conviction in federal court. The government sought a sentence of more than 12 years in prison.

Gregory Carter, 61, was sentenced to five years of probation and ordered to pay $6,129 in restitution. The government had recommended a sentence of 151 months in prison. Carter was arrested and charged in May 2017, and plead guilty to one count of unarmed bank robbery in August 2017. Carter has been sentenced to prison 10 times since 1974.

An individual later determined to be Carter, dressed in a black hat, ski mask, sunglasses and wearing blue latex gloves, entered a branch of the Santander Bank on Commonwealth Avenue in Boston on March 25, 2017. Once inside the bank, Carter passed a note to a teller indicating that he had a gun and demanded the bank’s money. The teller handed Carter $6,127, and Carter fled the bank.

Law enforcement collected the bank’s various surveillance camera footage and determined that Carter was the individual involved in the robbery. At the time of the robbery Carter was on federal supervised release stemming from a 2003 bank robbery conviction for which he received a 151-month federal prison sentence.