MACON, Ga. — A man was sentenced to federal prison on Wednesday for a Macon bank robbery he committed on Feb. 16, 2023, according to a press release from the U.S. Attorney's Office.
They say 29-year-old Gabriel Bell robbed a Truist Bank on Riverside Drive in north Macon over a year ago.
Bell gave a note to the bank teller that said: “PUT ALL BIG BILLS IN ENVELOPE (ROBBERY) Do anything stupid, and I’ll shoot you!”
He was arrested on Feb. 20, 2023, and then on Wednesday, he was sentenced to over nine years in prison.
While seven of those years are for the bank robbery, he earned an extra two years for violating his supervised release. That stemmed from a 2021 conviction in North Carolina for illegally possessing a firearm.
“Bell’s prior prison time was apparently not enough for him because he returned to his robbing ways while he was still on supervised release for the last crime he committed,” said Robert Gibbs, supervisory senior resident agent of FBI Atlanta’s Macon Office.
Bell will have five years of supervised release when he finishes his over nine year sentence. He'll serve all nine years of that sentence, as there's no parole in the federal system. He was also ordered to pay $3,000 of restitution to Truist Bank.
“Thanks to the assistance of our partners with the Bibb County Sheriff’s Office, he now will have more time in prison to think about what he’ll do when he is released from prison this time,” Gibbs said.
Court documents suggest that Bell walked into the bank at 2998 Riverside Drive in Macon at around 3:17 p.m. wearing a blue surgical mask. There were no customers in the bank at the time.
The release says the teller passed the note to a second teller after telling Bell she didn’t have any money. The second teller gave him the envelope, and he then ran off.
While no weapon was recovered, the tellers said Bell lifted his shirt and they saw something they described as dark, silver, with a handle that could have been a gun. Bell grabbed at his hip where tellers said they saw the object.
The sheriff's office released photos of the suspect, and four days later after the robbery, Bell was arrested. U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Georgia Peter Leary said the community helped lead to Bell's arrest.
“Two tips from concerned citizens helped law enforcement quickly track down Gabriel Bell, who was on federal supervised release at the time for illegally possessing a gun,” Leary said.
Bell, in 2015, was previously convicted of armed robbery of a Huddle House in Jeffersonville.
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