Former Ohio State football player avoids prison in bank robbery spree

A former Ohio State University football player will spend no time in prison after admitting to a seven-week bank-robbing spree.

Marcus Williamson, 27, pleaded guilty in March to nine counts of robbery connected to a spat of bank robberies between March and April 2024.

On Aug. 6, Franklin County Common Pleas Judge Sheryl Munson sentenced Williamson to four years of probation. As part of that sentence, Williamson will have to complete Munson’s specialty mental health docket.

Williamson will remain on house arrest and have GPS monitoring. He will not be allowed to enter any bank for the time being.

“At the end of the day, I have to do what I think is right, and in this case, I think this is right. If you prove me wrong, that will be on me,” Munson said.

Williamson will also be required to pay more than $14,000 in restitution.

Between March and April 2024, Williamson robbed nine different banks across Columbus. During five of those robberies, he told or implied to tellers that he had a gun. Court records say Williamson wore gloves, covered his face and in some instances, took the license plate off his vehicle so it couldn’t be identified on video cameras.

In total, Williamson got about $22,000 in the robberies.

Before Williamson was sentenced, Assistant Franklin County Prosecutors Steve Schott and Jason Manning argued he should not escape with any “free” robberies.

“This was not an isolated incident,” prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memo. “Time and again, he threatened the lives of bank tellers for profit. Time and again, he fled the scenes with those profits only to return to another bank.”

Williamson’s attorney, Fred Benton, argued Williamson had a history of mental health episodes but is now in a stable place and conditions won’t be created to have similar behavior happen in the future. Prosecutors said Williamson has a demonstrated the opposite.

Williamson, according to prosecutors, was involuntarily hospitalized after they say he assaulted two children in February 2022 and after being off medication for several months, committed violent offenses in August 2022 in Tennessee. Charges in both instances were either never filed or dismissed, court records show.

Prosecutors said that while Williamson’s mental health struggles shouldn’t be discounted, they also cannot be used as a crutch or blanket excuse for his actions.

“This was not a man who, on a single day, in a manic state, suddenly decided to rob a single bank,” prosecutors wrote. “This was a defendant who made plans to rob and evade capture and kept carrying out those plans over a seven week time period.”

Benton also said, according to court records, that the former football player was trying to get police to kill him and felt bank robberies were a way to accomplish this. Prosecutors, however, said Williamson’s own actions undermine that logic.

“One does not flee scene after scene nine separate times if one hopes to die during an incident with police,” prosecutors wrote.

WIlliamson played cornerback on the Ohio State football team from 2017 to 2021, receiving an extra year of eligibility for playing during the COVID-19 season in 2020. He started 14 games and appeared in 47, starting all eight games in 2020 and six in his fifth year in 2021.

Reporter Bethany Bruner can be reached at bbruner@dispatch.com.

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Former Ohio State football player avoids prison in bank robbery spree