Former boxing champ sentenced for bank robberies

A former welterweight boxing champion from Pittsburg was sentenced in federal court in Oakland Tuesday to seven years and three months in prison for the unarmed robberies of six East Bay banks last year.

James Quindale Page, 43, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White. He pleaded guilty to the six robberies in February.

Page, whose nickname was “The Mighty Quinn,” was a professional boxer in the 1990s and held the World Boxing Association’s welterweight title from 1998 to 2000.

He pleaded guilty to robbing six banks in Walnut Creek, Pleasanton, Oakley, Emeryville, Antioch and Lafayette of a total of $17,796 between March 6, 2013 and June 8, 2013.

Page was unarmed in the robberies and each time gave the teller a note with a message such as “This is a robbery. Give me all your money,” according to prosecutors.

U.S. Attorney Melinda Haag said that in addition to pleading guilty to six counts, Page admitted during his plea to having robbed two additional banks in Walnut Creek and Antioch of $2,939 in May 2013.

The FBI called the suspect in the heists the “Button Down Bandit” because the perpetrator wore long-sleeved, button-down collared shirts. Page has a tattoo on his neck, according to the FBI.

He has been in custody since his arrest on June 10, 2013. At the time of his arrest, Page was on probation from an 11-year sentence for two unarmed bank robberies and one attempted bank robbery committed in Atlanta in December 2001.

Page’s sentence today included five years and three months for the East Bay robberies and two years for violating his probation.

Defense attorney Ellen Leonida said in a sentencing brief Page suffered from a type of brain damage known as “dementia pugilistic,” resulting from repeated blows to his head during his boxing days.

After being released from prison in 2012, Page tried to make a comeback but was defeated by Rahman Yusubov in his attempted comeback fight in Sacramento on Nov. 17, 2012. Leonida wrote that the 2013 robberies followed Page’s “devastating” realization that his boxing career was over when he lost that fight.