Accused Oak Lawn bank robber to remain in federal custody
BY LAUREN FITZPATRICK Sun-Times Media lfitzpatrick@suntimes.com June 5, 2012 3:46PM
Police work the scene of a bank robbery and standoff at the Bank of America branch in the Ranch Manor Shooping Center at 111th Street and Pulaski Avenue in Oak Lawn Saturday, June 2, 2012. | Brett Roseman~Sun-Times Media
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A Chicago man accused of robbing an Oak Lawn bank and escaping into nearby ductwork will remain held in the Metropolitan Correctional Center pending the outcome of his criminal case.
Charles B. Estell, 37, of Chicago, told Magistrate Judge Sidney I. Schenkier he would not fight the government’s request to detain him on a single count of bank robbery.
Arrested early Sunday morning in the air ducts of a building adjacent to the Oak Lawn bank he’s accused of robbing, Estell appeared in an orange jumpsuit for the brief hearing in the Federal Courthouse in Chicago.
Police say he dropped through the ceiling into the Bank of America branch, 4046 W. 111th St., on Saturday afternoon and bound employees. Estell stashed some $100,000 in his black backpack, then disappeared back though the ceiling, according to the federal complaint.
Estell has an arrest history in Cook County dating to 1992; he’s served prison time on charges of carjacking and possessing a stolen car charges, and was paroled from the Illinois Department of Corrections in February 2011.
