Before being sentenced to eight years in prison for robbing a bank in Chester Township , William Brejcha told the judge he “can’t make excuses,” despite having mental and drug abuse issues following the sudden death of his wife.
Brejcha, 50, of 12068 Nikki Lane in Hambden Township, was arrested the day after the Jan. 21 heist at the Chase Bank branch — he stole $10,589 — and was indicted on Feb. 13.
He pleaded guilty in May to robbery, a second-degree felony; making false alarms, a first-degree misdemeanor; and possession of heroin, a fifth-degree felony.
Friday morning, Geauga County Common Pleas Court Judge Forrest Burt asked Brejcha — who has two prior bank robbery convictions out of federal court — if he had anything to say for himself.
“All I can say at this point is the only consideration is my mental health,” Brejcha said. “I don’t use it as an excuse. I’ve accepted responsibility for my decisions and my actions and their subsequent punishments. With concern of my mental health and the death of my wife, it was without question the most horrific thing I’ve ever had to experience in my life. I wasn’t in my right mind, but again, I’m here to just place myself at the mercy of you and the prosecutor with respect to my crime and I don’t know what else to say, I can’t make excuses.”
He added, “I did what I did, despite my mental health issues at the time. With the help of Ravenwood (Mental Health Center) and medication, I’ve come a long way. I shouldn’t be here given the suicidal tendencies that I had, but the fact that I am gives me a small measure of peace that there’s higher powers involved here, so whatever punishment I have to serve, so be it.”
Brejcha’s attorney, Bob Umholtz, asked Burt to take into consideration Brejcha’s mental health issues, substance abuse history, the death of his wife and the fact he has been working with the services offered to him since he’s been incarcerated when handing down his sentence.
“It’s difficult at this point in time to understand Mr. Brejcha and to find any words that could persuade the court to give him a lesser sentence than what his record report indicated he deserves,” Umholtz said. “There’s no escaping the fact that he has repeatedly committed violations of the law, almost all of which can be directly attributed to his substance abuse. I think he was so overwhelmed by his wife’s … death. He was distraught and turned to drugs. That seems to be his psychological makeup … he turns to an escape in drugs. Unfortunately, he hasn’t learned that there are other means to deal with issues.
“Although I will say that since he has been incarcerated over the past six months, he’s an entirely different person than he was when I met him back in December of 2013.
Flaiz said while the state understand’s Brejcha’s circumstances, his record changes the equation.
“Addiction, especially heroin addiction, makes people do things they wouldn’t otherwise do,” Flaiz said. “Certainly losing a spouse is a significant event in someone’s life. If Mr. Brejcha wasn’t a career criminal, the state would take a lot of that into consideration when presenting a recommendation to the court, but how many chances is Mr. Brejcha gonna get?
“This isn’t the first time he’s robbed a bank. He was convicted of two counts of bank robbery in federal court and sentenced to 77 months. Did that deter his future behavior? No, no. He did it again.”
In the January robbery, Brejcha entered the Chase Bank branch in the West Geauga Plaza brandished what appeared to be a semi-automatic pistol at bank tellers, then escaped with $10,589.
Brejcha created a diversion prior to entering the bank by calling Chester Township police to report a man living on Sandgate Drive had just been shot by his wife. An eyewitness provided a description of Brejcha and his vehicle, and, with the help of social media, he was arrested during a traffic stop in Chardon within 24 hours of the robbery.
In a search of Brejcha’s home, Chester police and Geauga County Sheriff’s deputies recovered most of the stolen cash, some of the clothing worn during the robbery and heroin. They did not recover the weapon, which Brejcha has said was a BB gun.
“These are people who went to work, these are customers in the bank, they had what they thought was a gun pointed at their face. He forced people into a room at the bank,” Flaiz said Friday morning. “There was a retired police officer who was armed at the bank. Thankfully, he showed some restraint because something really bad could have happened here.”
He said this wasn’t a desperate act of an addict.
“People who are addicted do desperate things, but this was a premeditated operation where he called in this false alarm and you have Chester police racing to a situation where they believe that somebody was shot on the other side of the township so he can go into the bank and execute this robbery,” Flaiz said. “I can go through the record, but the court has the record and quite frankly, it would take me a significant amount of time to go through this record.”
Burt mentioned having seen Brejcha not long ago on a separate heroin possession charge.
“I don’t mean to be trite when I say this is not your first rodeo,” he said. “You’ve robbed banks before.”
Burt sentenced Brejcha to eight years in prison on the robbery charge, six months in prison on the making false alarms charge and 10 months in prison on the possession of heroin charge — all to be served concurrently. He will also be placed on post release control for five years once he is out of prison.
In his plea agreement, Brejcha agreed to pay Chase Bank $2,114 in addition to all the money seized from his home — $8,500 — as restitution.