Cross-Dressing Bank Robber Sentenced to 15 Years in Prison

He did the crimes, now he'll do some long, hard time – presumably in regular prison garb and not a wig and dress.

Michael Levitson, 58, was sentenced Friday in Milwaukee County Circuit Court for three counts of bank robbery, drawing concurrent 25-year terms. He's responsible for spending 15 years in prison, with 10 more on extended supervision.

Levitson made quite a reputation as he repeatedly knocked over banks in the Milwaukee metro area while wearing a dress and a woman's wig, and getting away with it.

Levitson committed the three robberies he was convicted of on guilty pleas over less than a month, from the end of May through late June 2012.

On July 13, he decided to hit the Tri-City Bank at 10895 Blue Mound Road in Wauwatosa, and he didn't get far at all.

He also didn't fool anybody that day. Bank tellers looked up and gasped and knew they were going to be robbed by a man in women's clothes, they said.

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A bank employee was able to hit a silent alarm while Levitson was still holding up a teller, and a manager was calling in his description before he left.

When Tosa cops got the dispatch, a patrol officer happened to be just blocks away, and he sped toward the bank. As he passed Mt. Vernon Avenue, a block south of Blue Mound, he saw someone running madly up the street – wearing a dress.

The officer spun around, and within less than a minute since the dispatch went out, he had Levitson in custody.

According to the officer's report, after he was handcuffed and put into the back of a squad car, Leviston leaned forward to the officer and asked, "Where did you come from?"

Then, pleading, he said, "Get me out of this car so I can get out of this dress. This is a little embarrassing."

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