The Shawn Fox records · 2011, 2013, and the winter of 2018–19

January 2011 – January 28, 2019

The 2011 robbery: a United States Attorney's week-in-review report for the South Bend division records that Shawn Fox, 49 years old, of South Bend, was sentenced by District Judge Robert L. Miller Jr. to 120 months in prison and $3,409 in restitution after pleading guilty to bank robbery with the use of a firearm: in January 2011, Fox entered a South Bend bank with the intent to rob it, threatened a teller with a firearm, and obtained money.

The 2013 plea: the FBI's week-in-review for October 2013 records that Shawn Fox, 28 years old, of South Bend, pleaded guilty before Magistrate Judge Christopher A. Nuechterlein to the felony offense of bank robbery with the use of a firearm, with sentencing set for November 25, 2013.

The 2018–19 robberies: the Department of Justice reported in 2019 that Shawn Fox, 34 years old, of South Bend, was sentenced by Judge Miller to 137 months in prison upon his plea of guilty to three counts of bank robbery by force or violence, and ordered to pay $10,197. Beginning in December 2018 and continuing through January 28, 2019, Fox had been involved in the robbery of four banks — three in the South Bend area, in the Department's words, and one in Bronson, Michigan. He had been released from prison on October 19, 2018, from a previous bank robbery conviction, was on supervised release when the new robberies were committed, and stood convicted of five prior felony offenses, two of them robberies.

The conflict, printed whole: these three documents cannot all describe one man. The ages the government itself published — 49, 28, and 34 — do not fit a single life, and a 120-month sentence in the first record cannot be squared with the October 2018 prison release in the third if the three records concern the same person. The 2013 plea and the 2018–19 case fit each other (a man of 28 in 2013 is 34 in 2019, and the 2019 report's "previous bank robbery conviction" matches a 2013 plea); the 49-year-old of the 2011 item fits neither. Whether the South Bend division prosecuted two men of the same name for the same crime, or one of its releases misstated an age, the published record does not say. The three documents are printed here as they stand, and the discrepancy is left where the record leaves it.

Sources:

1. U.S. Attorney's Office, Northern District of Indiana, "Week In Review – South Bend" — Shawn Fox, 49, sentenced to 120 months, $3,409 restitution, for the January 2011 robbery of a South Bend bank at gunpoint.
2. FBI, Indianapolis Division, "Week in Review—South Bend" (October 2013), archives.fbi.gov — Shawn Fox, 28, plea of guilty to bank robbery with the use of a firearm; sentencing set for November 25, 2013.
3. U.S. Department of Justice, "South Bend Man Sentenced To Over 11 Years In Prison" (2019) — Shawn Fox, 34; 137 months; three counts of bank robbery by force or violence; four banks, December 2018 – January 28, 2019, three in the South Bend area and one in Bronson, Michigan; release from a previous bank robbery conviction on October 19, 2018; $10,197.