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Press Release

Violent Bank Robber Sentenced to 30 Years in Federal Prison

For Immediate Release
U.S. Attorney's Office, Northern District of Illinois

CHICAGO — A Chicago man has been sentenced to 30 years in federal prison for robbing a North Side bank at gunpoint.

JON GILES, 39, robbed a North Community Bank branch in Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighborhood on March 20, 2009.  After casing the building from the outside, Giles entered the bank and pointed a loaded gun at a female employee who was sitting at a desk.  He then forced a teller to fill a Ziploc bag with cash, screaming, “Give me the money or I will shoot her right now!”  The teller complied and filled the bag with approximately $1,153.  Giles then ordered the employee and the teller to lie face down on the floor while he fled the bank.

Giles was arrested in June 2009 on unrelated armed robbery charges and he has remained in custody.  A federal jury earlier this year convicted him on bank robbery and firearm charges.  U.S. District Judge Ronald A. Guzman on Wednesday imposed a 360-month sentence and ordered that Giles receive credit for time already served.

The sentence was announced by John R. Lausch, Jr., United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois; and Jeffrey S. Sallet, Special Agent-in-Charge of the Chicago office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.  Valuable assistance was provided by the Chicago Police Department.

“The defendant is a manipulative, violent, career criminal who appears unable to stop harming other members of society by committing violent crimes,” Assistant U.S. Attorneys Christopher V. Parente and Elizabeth Pozolo argued in the government’s sentencing memorandum.

Both the bank employee and the teller testified about their ordeals at trial.  The employee described how terrified she felt when Giles pressed the gun into her side and threatened to kill her.  She recalled thinking that she would never see her children again.

Evidence at trial revealed that authorities matched Giles’s DNA to a glove he wore during the bank robbery.

Updated September 27, 2018

Topic
Violent Crime