Man, 83, charged in string of bank robberies — after spending decades behind bars for similar crimes

An 83-year-old man who already served significant prison time for robbing banks has again been charged with a string of suburban bank robberies that culminated in a heist on Valentine’s Day.

Donald Bennett was charged last week along with alleged accomplice Edward Binert, 55. Authorities tracked them down through a series of rental cars seemingly used in the robberies. A license plate apparently swapped onto the vehicles was found in the residence where they were arrested, along with a wig, guns and a stack of shrink-wrapped cash, records show.

Detention hearings for Bennett and Binert are set for Thursday.

Records show that Bennett was convicted of bank robbery and assault with a deadly weapon in Kentucky in 1967, and he was sentenced to 24 years in prison. Then, in 1989, he was convicted on bank robbery charges again, that time in the Chicago area.

A judge sentenced Bennett to 50 years in prison in the Chicago case, records show. He was released from Bureau of Prisons custody in 2020. Then, in August 2022, he sought an early end to his supervised release. He complained that he’d spent 33 years in prison and “all I want to do is spent [sic] the time I have left with my family.”

“With all due respect it’s time for the nightmare to come to an end,” Bennett wrote.

A judge terminated Bennett’s supervised release in November 2022. The string of robberies that led to his latest legal troubles began seven months later, when a robber fled from a Chase bank in Oak Lawn with $11,400.

Additional robberies of Chase and Fifth Third banks followed in Oak Lawn, Lombard, Willowbrook, Tinley Park, Glen Ellyn and Hickory Hills. For example, a robber stole $30,868 from a second Chase bank in Oak Lawn on Aug. 25, records show. That time, the feds say the robber fled in a red Nissan.

A car matching that description was separately spotted that day with a license plate registered to a Chevrolet Cruze, records show. That Cruze was owned by a person who lives in Greenup, about 200 miles south of Chicago.

That license plate was also spotted six months later on a silver Nissan Altima near the robbery of a Chase bank in Hickory Hills committed by two people on Valentine’s Day. The feds found that Bennett had rented a newer model silver Altima bearing a Pennsylvania license plate earlier in the day.

After their arrest, Binert allegedly admitted that he participated in that robbery of the Chase Bank in Hickory Hills. He also said he met Bennett around 2006 while they were both serving time at a federal prison in Michigan.