35-year-old man charged with Lake View bank robbery
A surveillance image of a man who robbed a TCF Bank branch on April 14 in Lake View. | FBI
CHICAGO (SUN TIMES MEDIA WIRE) - A 35-year-old man was charged Thursday with robbing a Lake View bank branch on the North Side.
Michael Weimer was charged with the April 14 robbery of a TCF Bank branch located within a Jewel-Osco store at 3531 N. Broadway, according to an FBI complaint.
About 3:30 p.m, a robber walked up to a teller’s window with his his hood covering his face and presented a note urging the teller to “say nothing” and hand over money in large bills, the FBI said. He also directed the teller not to include dye packs, which are used to foil bank robberies by remotely marking stolen bills.
After receiving $3,260.06, the robber exited the branch, leaving behind the demand note, at which point the teller told her manager that the branch had been robbed and pointed out the culprit, the FBI said.
The manager followed the robber out of the Jewel-Osco store and watched him get into an SUV taxi which drove north on Broadway, the FBI said. The manager wrote down the license plate and reported it to Chicago Police, who tracked down the taxi later that day.
The driver told police that he had picked up a white male on the east side of Broadway Avenue at Cornelia Street, who was subsequently dropped off in the 3800 block of North Fremont Street, the FBI said.
On April 18, a woman who saw a news report about the bank robbery informed police that she saw a man who fit the robber’s description walking northbound in the 3900 block of Broadway Avenue, the FBI said.
Shortly after, Chicago Police tracked down Weimer at a BP gas station at 841 West Irving Park Rd., the FBI said. During an interview, Weimer told police he had a hypodermic needle in his pocket. Following a search, he was also found with multiple Xanax pills.
Weimer was taken into custody and charged with possession of a controlled substance and possession of drug paraphernalia, the FBI said. During his arrest, he told police that he was living at his girlfriend’s Lake View apartment.
Later that day, FBI agents interviewed Weimer’s girlfriend, who told them he had showed up at her apartment building between 2 p.m. and 6 p.m. on April 14 and threw an object at her window, the FBI said. Weimer then asked her to let him in the back door, despite the fact he had a key for the front door. After entering the apartment, Weimer removed a large amount of money from his pocket, including several $100 and $20 bills.
After being shown a surveillance photo from the April 14 robbery, Weimer’s girlfriend positively identified him as the robber, the FBI said
On April 19, the bank teller also positively identified Weimer from an array of six photos, indicating she was 40 to 50 percent confident in her identification, the FBI said.
The same robber is believed to be responsible for TCF branch robberies at 3:22 p.m. April 24 at 3570 N. Elston Ave. in Avondale, at 6:17 p.m. March 24 at 4355 N. Sheridan Rd. in Uptown and about noon March 30 at 2940 N. Ashland Ave. in Lakeview.