Springfield, IL-(ENEWSPF)- Stephen R. Wigginton, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Illinois, announced that on January 7, 2011, BRIAN HEATH DUFF, age 36, of Livingston, Illinois, was sentenced to 105 months in prison and five years of supervised release at the conclusion of his incarceration for robbing the First National Bank of Staunton in Hamel, Illinois. On July 26, 2010, DUFF entered the bank and approached a teller with a realistic-looking black handgun replica partially wrapped in a newspaper and showed the teller a handwritten note instructing the teller to give him money.
According to the FBI, the teller saw the handgun replica, was placed in fear, and provided the defendant with approximately $1,402.00. The defendant exited the bank with the money and drove away only to be apprehended minutes later by a Deputy Madison County Sheriff who found the money and replica handgun in the vehicle and on DUFF. DUFF was then charged by complaint and ordered detained. On August 18, 2010, a federal grand jury returned an indictment against DUFF charging him with one count of bank robbery. DUFF had pled guilty to the charge of bank robbery on September 15, 2010.
The prosecution follows an investigation by the Madison County Sheriff’s Office and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Kevin F. Burke.
