FBI Chicago
Special Agent Siobhan Johnson
(312) 829-1199
May 23, 2014

North Chicago Man Arrested in Connection with Waukegan Bank Robbery

A man who allegedly robbed a Waukegan bank at knife-point on Wednesday is in federal custody and has been charged in connection with the robbery. William Rozelle, 30, of the 2200 block of Kristan Avenue in North Chicago, was charged in a one-count criminal complaint filed this morning in U.S. District Court. The charge was announced today by Robert J. Holley, Special Agent in Charge of the Chicago Field Office of the FBI and Zachary T. Fardon, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois.

The complaint alleges that the robber, later identified as Rozelle, entered the bank Wednesday morning and spoke with a bank teller about opening checking and savings accounts. During the course of this conversation, the robber presented a state-issued photo identification card that listed the name William Jeffery Rozelle and provided a Social Security number that matches the number for Rozelle, according to the complaint. After being told of a fee required to open accounts, the robber left the bank, telling the teller he needed to retrieve money from his car.

The complaint alleges that the robber returned to the bank a short time later and told the teller that he was robbing the bank. He also allegedly presented a handwritten note that demanded $150,000 and indicated that the robber was armed with a gun. The robber then pulled a large knife from the sweatshirt he wore and, holding the knife to the teller’s side and ordering her to call out to another bank teller, led both tellers to the bank’s vault, according to the complaint. The robber then allegedly ordered the tellers to open the vault and pull cash into a backpack he carried with him. The complaint further alleges that the robber ordered the tellers to get into the vault but relented when the tellers told him that the vault was too small and that they would not be able to breathe in the vault.

Rozelle appeared this morning before U.S. Magistrate Judge Michael T. Mason, who ordered him held pending his next court appearance, which has not yet been scheduled. If convicted of the charge filed against him, Rozelle faces a possible maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.

The public is reminded that a criminal complaint is not evidence of guilt and that all defendants in a criminal case are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.