Illinois man sentenced in 2014 bank robberies in Indiana

HAMMOND, Ind. (AP) - An Illinois man has received a 261-month sentence after he spent more than five years attempting to convince government experts that he was too delusional to face felony charges for bank robberies in northwest Indiana.

Jeremiah Ellis, 34, was sentenced Thursday. The man from Blue Island in Illinois admitted to robbing employees of two gas stations in Hammond, Indiana, in early 2014. Both times, he said he took the employees' money at gunpoint.

Ellis and his co-defendant, Ashley Patterson, then held up an East Chicago bank several months later, authorities said. Government officials said Ellis and Patterson left their two children alone in their car as they took money at gunpoint from bank employees.

After he was apprehended - and over the course of the next five years - Ellis began feigning insanity and intellectual disability, convincing several mental health experts at federal prisons in Kentucky and North Carolina that he couldn't be tried.

By 2019, federal prison authorities became suspicious. Their surveillance revealed Ellis was bragging to others about his 'œinsanity defense'ť and coaching fellow inmates to do the same.

Magistrate Judge Andrew Rodovich ruled shortly after that Ellis' mental illness was a hoax and declared he was competent to stand trial.

Ellis later pleaded guilty Oct. 27, admitting his role in the robberies and avoiding a possible life sentence. Patterson, 30, also pleaded guilty and is serving a prison term in Illinois.

His defense attorney John Maksimovich has said that Ellis had a difficult childhood, including drug use.