Jailed Man Indicted in Robberies : Crime: Federal panel charges him with robbing four banks in Santa Clarita and Palmdale last year. He’s now in a Washington prison.

A 29-year-old Tujunga man, jailed since October, has been indicted on federal bank robbery charges for a string of 1992 bank robberies in Santa Clarita and Palmdale over a three-month period, federal authorities said.

Joseph Anaya was indicted by a federal grand jury Friday for his role in four bank robberies, said Charlie Parson, special agent in charge of the Los Angeles office.

Members of a joint task force of Los Angeles Police Department officers and FBI agents arrested Anaya in October at a Tujunga grocery store for parole violations stemming from a previous bank-robbery conviction.

The indictment charges Anaya with robbing Citibank in Canyon Country July 13, Glendale Federal Bank in Valencia July 22 and two Bank of America branches, in Canyon Country Aug. 7, and in Palmdale Sept. 8, Parsons said.

If convicted, Anaya, now in a federal prison in Washington, could face a 20-year prison term and a $5,000 fine for each robbery, Parsons said.

FBI Agent Gary Auer, who heads the Ventura FBI office, said there was nothing particularly unusual about the rash of bank robberies on the northern outskirts of Los Angeles County because one-quarter of all U. S. bank robberies occur in seven Southern California counties.

In 1992, there were 2,696 bank robberies in Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino, Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, Riverside and Ventura counties, he said.