A convicted bank robber from Chicago, Illinois, Eric A. Boyd, 55, has been served a stiff 180-month sentence by U.S. District Court Judge James E. Shadid, announced the Department of Justice. This stint will run consecutively with a sentence previously imparted for multiple similar crimes.
Brandishing what appeared to be a firearm and threatening that he had a bomb, Boyd burst into the Moline, Illinois, Chase Bank, on May 1, 2023, shocking customers and employees into submission. According to a statement obtained by the U.S. Attorney's Office, the seasoned criminal then forced bank employees to fill a duffle bag with the bank's currency.
Boyd, having been prematurely released in January 2021 from an earlier prison sentence for a string of armed bank robberies, found himself back in handcuffs on May 5, following the Moline heist. While the maximum penalty for armed bank robbery peaks at 25 years, Boyd was handed a sentence of 180 months, or 15 years, followed by a five-year term of supervised release.
During the sentencing, Judge Shadid duly noted Boyd's lengthy rap sheet and propensity for crime, stating that "prior prison sentences had not deterred Boyd from engaging in new crimes," and emphasized the need "to protect the community from further harm." Despite the Department's violent crime reduction strategy and the bolstering of Project Safe Neighborhoods, Boyd's case underscores the continued struggle to prevent repeat offenses by career criminals.
The Moline Police Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Springfield Field Office conducted a joint investigation that led to Boyd's arrest and subsequent plea of guilty on September 19, 2023. The prosecution was represented in court by Supervisory Assistant U.S. Attorney John Mehochko. Boyd's prosecution and sentencing fall under Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN), a collaborative initiative designed to reduce violent crime and gun violence in pursuit of safer neighborhoods for all.
