Escaped Bank Robber Sentenced to 30 Years in Federal Prison

A. Courtney Cox, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Illinois, announced today that RODNEY L. BROWN, age 34, a former resident of Alton, Illinois, was sentenced in abstentia on January 29, 2010, to a term of 276 months for the bank robbery itself, and to a consecutive term of 84 months for using a firearm during the robbery. Brown was also ordered to pay restitution of $30,063.00 to U.S. Bank, to pay $200.00 in special assessments, and to serve a term of five years supervised release after he completes his prison sentence.

BROWN and two other inmates escaped from the Tri-County Detention Center in Ullin, Illinois, on January 6, 2010. He remains at large.

On December 18, 2008, a federal jury found BROWN guilty of robbing the U.S. Bank in Alton on October 20, 2006. According to evidence presented at his jury trial, BROWN and three other men took $68,112.00 from the bank. One of BROWN’s co-defendants entered the bank and forced a bank officer into the bank’s vault, by threatening her with a handgun and a purported bomb. BROWN was arrested at a residence in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on April 27, 2007. Police recovered approximately $10,000.00 of the bank robbery proceeds from the residence in which BROWN was arrested.

The investigation which resulted in BROWN’s conviction was conducted by the Alton Police Department, the United States Marshal Service, the Milwaukee Police Department, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Robert L. Garrison.