SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — Before last year, William Alfred Ginglen had no criminal record to speak of — not even a traffic ticket.
Now the small-town father, husband and ex-Marine is likely to spend the rest of his life in federal prison after being sentenced Thursday to 40 years for a string of rural bank robberies. Ginglen was turned in by his sons after one recognized him from a police surveillance tape.
U.S. District Judge Jeanne Scott struggled to reconcile the 64-year-old man's history as a civic leader and family man with his recent history of crime.
"You pose a dilemma in trying to figure out what in the world happened to you," Scott said.
"He was a good man who somehow went horribly wrong," his ex-wife, Donna, wrote to the court, a description the judge deemed "generous" before handing down the minimum sentence recommended by prosecutors.
The judge also ordered Ginglen to pay $56,382 in restitution for the money authorities say he stole to support a girlfriend, a crack cocaine habit and visits to prostitutes.
Ginglen pleaded guilty in July to seven bank robberies in 2003 and 2004. His double life, which he detailed in a diary, began to unravel in August 2004, when one of his sons, Peoria police officer Jared Ginglen, recognized his father as the masked figure on surveillance videos posted on a law enforcement Web site.
The three Ginglen boys — Jared, Clay and Garrett — have said it was their father who taught them to always do the right thing.
"There are no winners here today. The whole thing has been a tragedy for my family," Jared Ginglen said after his father's sentencing. He said there were no regrets about turning his father in: "It had to be done."
In court, the judge called Ginglen's sons "the greatest credit of your life."
"They acted in an exemplary fashion under circumstances that must have been incredibly difficult," she said.
Ginglen's attorney, Ron Hamm, pleaded with the judge to consider Ginglen's service as village trustee, zoning board chairman, auxiliary police officer and firefighter when handing down the sentence. But he descended into a life of crime after losing two jobs.
Hamm said "something snapped" when Ginglen began his spree.
Addressing the court, Ginglen started to speak, stopped for 90 seconds to compose himself, and then said, "I'd like to apologize to everyone."
Hamm said he planned an appeal to suppress evidence Jared Ginglen took from his father's house, including clothing and the diary. Hamm said they were illegally seized because the son is a police officer.
Jared Ginglen said he was off duty at the time, out of his jurisdiction, and he went to the house to find his father and confront him, not seize evidence.