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HERMISTON — About three weeks before his arrest Friday in a Hermiston bank robbery, Clifford Uptegrove, was let out of federal prison under a compassionate release because of COVID-19.

Uptegrove, 58, of Yakima, Washington, remains in the Umatilla County Jail in Pendleton on suspicion of first-degree robbery, first-degree theft and felony fleeing.

The robbery occurred just before 3 p.m. at Umpqua Bank, according to Hermiston Police Chief Jason Edmiston.

Moments after the robbery, a Umatilla County sheriff’s deputy spotted the suspect in a vehicle, he said. That led to a vehicle chase, but the suspect eventually pulled over.

Records show Uptegrove has a history of robbing banks.

In 2005, he was sentenced to federal prison for more than 20 years after he pleaded guilty to armed bank robbery and using a firearm during a crime of violence, according to a news release issued that year by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Washington.

According to the news release, police caught Uptegrove in March 2004 after a robbery at the Riverview Community Bank in Hazell Dell, Washington, and during questioning he admitted to nine robberies of credit unions from 2001-04, including hitting the Kennewick Community Federal Credit Union twice and robbing the Oregon Central Credit Union in Portland three times.

Federal court records show Uptegrove was serving time at the Federal Correctional Institution in Otisville, New York, and had a release date of March 17, 2022. But last year, Uptegrove sought a compassionate release.

Uptegrove suffers from asthma, according to court documents, and was at an increased risk of developing COVID-19.

According to the release order, the court found Uptegrove took “commendable strides to grow and change while in prison, completing a number of self-help and educational programs in anticipation of his eventual release and maintaining a clean disciplinary record for the last nine-plus years.”

The court also ordered him to live with his sister in Yakima, where he could “rehabilitate in a smaller community with family nearby, while offering his sister, who is struggling with lymphoma, the help she needs.”

U.S. Senior District Judge Marsha J. Pechman signed the release order Nov. 17, 2020, freeing Uptegrove from prison 14 days after and immediately placing him under supervised release.

As far as the Hermiston robbery goes, Edmiston said, police were planning on obtaining a search warrant for the vehicle Uptegrove drove to look for evidence from the bank robbery.