Man Gets Federal Prison After String Of Robberies At Milwaukee Bank

MILWAUKEE, WI — A man who was convicted in connection with a string of robberies at the same Milwaukee bank in 2021 was sentenced to 16 years in federal prison on Thursday, prosecutors announced.

U.S. District Court Judge Lynn Adelman sentenced 30-year-old Antoine L. Jackson to 16 years in prison after a jury convicted him on bank robbery charges and a charge of conspiracy to retaliate against an informant, according to a news release from U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Wisconsin Gregory J. Haanstad. Jackson was also convicted on a charge of possessing a firearm as a convicted felon, the news release said.

Related: Federal Jury Finds Milwaukee Man Guilty After String Of Bank Robberies

Prosecutors accused Jackson after a Wells Fargo location in the 7600 block of West Hampton Avenue faced three robberies alongside threats of destruction and death unless they handed over money between September and December 2021, the DOJ said in a January news release.

"During the robberies, the defendant and his co-actors passed notes to the bank tellers, threatening that unless they were given money, they would blow up the building or kill everyone inside the bank," Haanstad's news release said on Thursday.

During Thursday's sentencing, prosecutors said that Judge Adelman spoke about Jackson's past criminal history, the trauma inflicted on the bank employees, and the "concerning nature" of Jackson recruiting and training younger men to rob banks.

Jackson was arrested by early January 2022 and when he was in jail he made calls that landed him a charge of conspiracy to retaliate against an informant, according to the DOJ news release. Prosecutors said Jackson gave instructions to injure someone suspected of being an informant.

Prosecutors in-part used forensic and DNA evidence recovered from the crime scenes that tied Jackson to the robberies, according to the news release. DNA was recovered from three parts of a gun that Jackson was not allowed to possess because of an earlier felony conviction, the news release said.

The FBI Milwaukee Area Violent Crimes Task Force investigated the case alongside the Milwaukee Police Department.