ORLANDO – On Tuesday, Eliezer Gonzalez Jr. was booked into the Orange County Jail on a charge of violation of probation. Today, Osceola County Sheriff’s detectives charged him with an even more serious offense: his involvement in an armed robbery at a Kissimmee-area Bank of America branch that took place last month.
Osceola detectives got a felony warrant against Gonzalez for armed robbery and grand theft. Gonzalez was brought in for questioning and he cooperated with the investigators, said Twis Lizasuain, public information officer for the Osceola County Sheriff’s Office.
“Last night, we received some credible information on the suspect,” Lizasuain said. “Our detectives found him last night at his apartment in Orlando, and we arrested him on a violation of probation charge so they could hold him while we got the warrant.”
This case dated back to Jan. 20. Around 11 a.m. that day, Osceola County Sheriff’s deputies got a call from the Bank of America at 2000 E. Osceola Parkway about an armed robbery. A bank employee told deputies a man had walked into the bank and handed a note to one of the tellers, then implied he had a weapon and demanded money. The suspect was last seen leaving the bank in a white, four door full size vehicle.
The Osceola County Sheriff’s Office sent out a news release asking for the public’s help in finding the robber, described as a Hispanic man, about 5 feet 10 inches tall, weighing 180 pounds with brown hair and a goatee. He had been wearing a Miami Heat hat, a dark colored Ralph Lauren polo shirt and blue jeans during the robbery.
The sheriff’s office also released enhanced photos of the suspect, which including photos of some distinctive tattoos on his right arm.
In this case, Lizasuain said, the well publicized photos did not lead to any tips on the case.
“Typically it is helpful when we send that information out to the media, but in this case it wasn’t,” she said.
Instead, “We got some information on the case” during the course of the Osceola detectives’ ongoing investigation.
Gonzalez, 26, was found on Tuesday at his apartment at 5573 Estabrook Woods in Orlando.
“We went and found him in his apartment in Orange County, and he was booked in the Orange County jail,” Lizasuain said. “He has to go to the jail in the county where we located him, which is why he went to the Orange County jail. If he had been arrested in Osceola County, he would have gone to the Osceola County jail.”
Once Gonzalez has been arraigned on the violation of probation charges, Lizasuain said, “He’ll be extradited to Osceola County” where he’ll face the armed robbery charges.
Lizasuain added that when Gonzalez was questioned by detectives, “He fully cooperated with us.”
Gonzalez had been charged in 2009 with three counts of tampering with a witness and two counts of battery. On March 26 2009, he pled no contest to the charges and was placed on probation, and ordered to complete a Batterer’s Intervention Program and to pay $1,500 restitution to the victim.
Last July, Gonzalez’s driving privileges were suspended because he had not paid his court-ordered restitution or mandated court costs, and those costs got turned over to a collections agency.

Contact us at FreelineOrlando@Gmail.com.