CLEARLAKE OAKS – Following a standoff with police Saturday evening, a Clearlake Park man was arrested for his alleged involvement in a bank robbery last month.

Clearlake Police reported this morning that Johnathan Antonio Mota, 25, was arrested Saturday at the Elem Colony, after the sheriff's office received a call from the colony for service.

Mota is being held in connection with the Dec. 8 armed robbery of Clearlake's Bank of the West, according to a CPD statement issued Monday morning by Detective Sgt. Craig Clausen.

Elem Colony member Jim Brown confirmed that authorities were at the colony Saturday at around 5 p.m., after the tribe's current chair, Ray Brown Sr., called the Lake County Sheriff's Office to report Mota had a gun.

Brown said he received a call about the incident. “I looked outside and they had a SWAT team,” he said.

“It was probably about an hour they were up there before he (Mota) came out,” Brown added.

Mota, Brown said, is not an Elem tribal member, but was at the colony reportedly to visit his sister, who lives there.

Colleen Beardsley, an Elem Colony neighbor, said she heard gunshots and saw lights on the colony grounds over a period of a few hours Saturday night.

She said one a man who lives in her neighborhood went by the colony and spoke with an official who identified himself as a federal marshal, and told her neighbor to go home, stay inside and lock his doors. The neighbor then came back and updated her and others in the area.

Beardsley said she had also heard gunshots the previous night/early morning.

Brown said he believed LCSO deputies tasered Mota. “From where I was, I could hear them giving the instructions,” he said.

Scanner traffic from that night also suggested that someone was barricaded in a home, and that three small children were taken out of the home during the incident.

Clausen said he could not confirm if Mota was tasered because neither he nor CPD were involved in the arrest.

Lake County Superior Court issued an arrest warrant for Mota on Dec. 29, the day before the arrest, based on Clearlake Police's investigation, according to Clausen's Jan. 1 statement.

The Lake County Jail confirmed that Mota was arrested by LCSO Deputy Davidson at 5:47 p.m. on a Clearlake Police Department warrant, and booked just after 12 a.m. Dec. 31.

Mota is being held on a felony charge of second-degree robbery, with bail set at $100,000. A second charge, a misdemeanor for resisting/obstructing a police officer, carries and additional $1,000 bond.

Clausen said that the actual amount of money taken from Bank of the West has not been disclosed.

As to whether or not others were involved, Clausen said, “We're continuing the investigation.”

Clearlake Police request that anyone with information about the robbery contact Det. Richard Towle, 994-8251.

E-mail Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

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