FBI agents on Wednesday arrested two men in connection with a monthslong string of suburban bank heists, according to a criminal complaint.
Donald “Doc” Bennett, 83, and Edward Binert, 55, met while serving federal time for previous robberies, the complaint said. Binert told law enforcement after his arrest that Bennett had been visiting him from Kentucky.
The pair are now accused of using a gun to intimidate employees at a Hickory Hills Chase Bank into handing over almost $7,000 Feb. 14, the complaint said.
Special agent Cassandra Johnson wrote in the complaint that Bennett and Binert’s contact information appeared on rental car paperwork for vehicles associated with several previous bank robberies in Oak Lawn. The FBI was investigating a total of seven robberies in Oak Lawn, Lombard, Willowbrook, Tinley Park, Glen Ellyn and Hickory Hills between June 2023 and February 2024, Johnson wrote.
In the robberies that took place before Feb. 14, the suspects were older white men in face coverings who showed a gun to the teller, demanded money and used a rental car as a getaway vehicle, Johnson wrote.
Cell phone tracking information indicated that the contact numbers listed on rental car agreements had been in the vicinity of four of the targeted banks around the time they were robbed, according to the complaint.
FBI agents arresting the pair the night of the Feb. 14 robbery found a wig, the Illinois license plates seen on different rental cars, a gray hat with attached hair, makeup and three loaded guns by the door, tucked between sofa seat cushions and on a bedside table. Agents also recovered a stack of wrapped bills and clothes and shoes apparently worn during the robbery earlier that day, according to the complaint.
Binert admitted to the Feb. 14 robbery and said he and Bennett met in 2006 while in federal prison in Michigan, the complaint said.
Binert pleaded guilty in 2004 to holding four employees of a Plainfield bank hostage for about three hours before surrendering to authorities. He’d already absconded with almost $150,000 in three preceding robberies of banks in Bolingbrook and Plainfield, the Tribune reported at the time.
Bennett, known as “the leaping bandit” for his distinctive way of hopping over counters to access cash drawers, was on his second prison stint following a 1989 conviction for robbing a bank in the Chicago area. He’d been sentenced to 50 years without parole.
Information from the Federal Bureau of Prisons show Bennett was released in April 2020.
A detective on Bennett’s case in 1989 said a police officer asked him after his capture what he would do once he left prison as an older man.
”Jump counters again,” Bennett is said to have responded. ”But it probably won’t be as easy.”
ckubzansky@chicagotribune.com