A former assistant football coach at Porters Chapel Academy will serve 15 years in prison for bank robbery and eluding law enforcement following his guilty plea Monday in Warren County Circuit Court.

Derrick Collins, 45, who lived at 170 Shannon Lane, admitted to the Dec. 14 robbery of the Britton & Koontz Bank on U.S. 61 North and the high-speed chase in which he led deputies along Culkin and Mount Alban roads, Warriors Trail and Mississippi 27 before they disabled his car with tire spike strips.

He was also fined $1,000 and will have to pay $322.50 in court costs and state assessments.

District Attorney Ricky Smith told presiding Judge M. James Chaney that Collins entered the bank wearing a mask and threatened to shoot a teller unless she gave him money. About $3,100 was found in Collins’ vehicle after he was arrested, and DNA recovered from the mask, which deputies found on the road along the chase route, matched a sample given by Collins, Smith told the court.

Collins was indicted on armed robbery and felony eluding charges in May by the grand jury and was initially scheduled for a jury trial Monday. The trial had been reset for Sept. 13, but in the meantime Collins was offered a reduced robbery charge, along with the eluding, in exchange for his guilty plea, Smith said.

“He had no weapon,” Smith said, even though in approaching the bank teller Collins had threatened to shoot her. “In certain cases a defendant can be convicted of armed robbery if they do not actually have a weapon, but it is more difficult to prove beyond a reasonable doubt.”

If convicted of armed robbery and eluding, Collins would have faced a maximum of 20 years in prison and $15,000 in fines, Smith said.

Collins stood quietly with his attorney, Branan Southerland, throughout the hearing, and was led back across Grove Street to the Warren County Jail immediately after.

“Because it was a violent crime, we hope he will serve all 15 years,” Smith said.

Bank officials were informed of the plea and sentence before the hearing, said Smith. An official at the branch declined to comment, and a corporate official did not return a call.

When he was arrested, authorities said Collins had been convicted in Harrison County in 1995 of bank robbery, armed robbery, burglary and uttering a forgery. He served five years in prison.

For about a year before his arrest, Collins had been a part-time football and basketball coach at Porters Chapel. PCA headmaster Doug Branning could not be reached.

Collins also reportedly served in the U.S. military and had been employed by a Mississippi Gulf Coast police department. He told Chaney he had earned a master’s degree in business and a bachelor’s in criminal justice from the University of Southern Mississippi.

He also said he is being treated and takes medication for heart disease and cancer. Neither Southerland nor Smith would comment on Collins’ medical condition, citing privacy laws.

Bond for Collins had been set at $250,000 but he had remained in the Warren County Jail since his arrest. Smith said Collins would be sent to the Central Mississippi Correctional Facility for assignment to a state prison.

The Dec. 14 B&K heist was the second of two bank robberies in the city and county in 2010. On Sept. 24, the Trustmark Bank branch at 1020 Mission 66 was robbed of an unspecified amount of cash, of which about $800 was reportedly recovered, marked with dye from an exploding security pack.

Christopher Marcel Johnson, 26, who formerly lived with his grandparents on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard but had been staying in city motels, was arrested by Vicksburg police the day following the robbery and indicted in May by the grand jury, and is scheduled for trial in circuit court Tuesday.