Three men who robbed a Slidell bank last year, then triggered a police pursuit as they fled, pleaded guilty Monday and were each sentenced to 25 years.

Ronnie Carter, 19, and Cornell Moore, 26, both of New Orleans, and Robert Smith, 30, of Harvey, offered the plea for the Sept. 21, 2006, armed robbery of Statewide Bank on Gause Boulevard in Slidell. State District Court Judge Peter Garcia sentenced the trio.

The guilty pleas come roughly three weeks after a fourth suspect, Kerri Smith, 22, also of New Orleans, was convicted by a jury of robbing the bank. Garcia sentenced Smith to 35 years in that case. After seeing Smith receive the mid range penalty — Louisiana law offers a penalty range from 10 to 99 years for armed robbery convictions — the defendants “knew the same evidence would be presented,” said Rick Wood, spokesman for District Attorney Walter Reed.

“They were all caught together, and they felt like a plea was their best option,” Wood said.

Smith’s armed robbery trial made headlines last month when his defense team portrayed him as well intended Delgado Community College student who was too poor to afford a car to drive to class. In order to follow his dreams of being a mortician, Smith was forced to make a tough one-time decision that he felt was a victimless crime.

Thus the robbery plan was hatched. Smith, along with Carter, Moore and Robert Smith, no relation to Kerri Smith, plotted the robbery for two weeks, according to records.

The scheme began with the crew stealing a black Ford Explorer from New Orleans car thieves as a getaway car.

Then the plan went sour.

As they held up the tellers, the foursome first found themselves fleeing with $40,000 in dummy money, stacks of $100 bills wrapped in electronic money bands designed to trip security alarms.

Then as they fled, two gunshots whizzed by from an off duty law enforcement officer who noticed the robbery and fired warning shots.

The gun blasts triggered a police chase, and with Moore as the alleged getaway driver, the crew ran a stop sign and smacked into a parked car at Military Road and Short Cut Highway.

Several trailing officers were there to make the arrests.