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The escape of the two bank robbers from Chicago's Metropolitan Correctional Center left some people scratching their heads. The pair rappelled about 20 stories on a rope made of bed sheets
CHICAGO -- One of two bank robbers who escaped a high-rise federal jail Tuesday by scaling down some 20 stories on a rope made from bed sheets has been arrested after an FBI manhunt, the agency said early Friday.
FBI spokeswoman Joan Hyde said Joseph "Jose" Banks was captured without incident in Chicago. Agents from the Chicago FBI's Violent Crimes Task Force, along with officers from the Chicago Police Department, arrested Banks about 11:30 p.m. Thursday, Hyde said in a news release.
The search continued for Kenneth Conley, who fled the jail with Banks.
Banks, 37, and Conley, 38, somehow broke a large hole into the bottom of a 6-inch-wide window of the Metropolitan Correctional Center, dropped out their makeshift rope and climbed down about 20 floors to the ground.
The escape went unnoticed for hours, with surveillance video from a nearby street showing the two hop into a cab shortly before 3 a.m. Tuesday. They had changed out of their orange jail-issued jumpsuits.
When the facility did discover the two men were gone around 7 a.m., what was found revealed a meticulously planned escape, including clothing and sheets shaped to resemble a body under blankets on beds, bars inside a mattress and even fake bars in the cells.
Bank robbers use rope made of cloth scraps to escape jail
A massive manhunt involving state, federal and local law enforcement agencies was launched, as SWAT teams stormed into the home of a relative of Conley only to learn the two escapees had been there and left. The authorities searched other area homes and businesses — even a strip club where Conley once worked.
'Second-Hand Bandit'
Law enforcement officials left a host of questions unanswered, including how the men could collect about 200 feet of bed sheets and what they might have used to break through the wall of the federal facility.
Banks, known as the Second-Hand Bandit because he wore used clothes during his heists, was convicted last week of robbing two banks and attempting to rob two others. Authorities say he stole almost $600,000, and most of that still is missing.
During trial, he had to be restrained because he threatened to walk out of the courtroom. He acted as his own attorney and verbally sparred with the prosecutor, at times arguing that U.S. law didn't apply to him because he was a sovereign citizen of a group that was above state and federal law.
Prisoner escapes, found in hospital vent less than an hour later
Conley pleaded guilty last October to robbing a Homewood Bank last year of nearly $4,000. Conley, who worked at the time at a suburban strip club, wore a coat and tie when he robbed the bank and had a gun stuffed in his waistband.
The Metropolitan Correctional Center, located in Chicago's Loop, has been the site of escape attempts before.
Fugitive who escaped from prison more than 31 years ago finally caught
The brother of "Dark Knight" director Christopher Nolan pleaded guilty in 2010 for trying to escape the jail using a rope made of bed sheets.
Matthew Nolan planned to rappel down the side of the building using a 31-foot rope of bed sheets that he had hidden in a mattress, NBCChicago.com reported, adding that in 1985, two men escaped by shimmying down a 75-foot extension cord they threw out the window.
Escape carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine, authorities said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Leave a Comment:
Those two have balls as big as church bells.
And, apparently, a lot of bedsheets.
Want are they doing letting the inmates install the bars? oh wait Chicago..union masons and builders...that explains it.
2 D @sses getting much more time. Please post their new "I gots caught mugshots".
Are we sure this wasn't a Bugs Bunny cartoon?
HMMM let's see.. two men rob several thousands from banks and escape justice- they get attention from SWAT, FBI, they get automatic extra jail time...
Bank CEO's get stupid and greedy, fail, then legally get hundreds of billions from the US taxpayer in bailouts- and they strut around proudly, without fear of prosecution, like they own the world...
CEO's didn't commit a crime; as you said, they simply failed. A little bit jealous are we?
They don't actually get the money from the taxpayer...they get it from the politician they bought and paid for.
You don;t seriously think we live in a democracy do you??
@zebide, USA may be an imperfect Democracy, but I'll take it over the alternatives. You're free to move.
They must've used a lot of chiseling with silverware.
Best story of the year! And just in time too. If not this year it would have won next year. Does it really matter?
umm... they caught ONE....50% capture rate on this ONE crime....story of the year?...
any luck collecting those fines? All those rich guys in jail must be loaded a d just hate those fines.
It must have been pretty hard to see these small guys. I mean, from the written news article, these men crawled out of a six inch hole to scale down a building with bed sheets? Wow small guys, or maybe they are like Super Heroes with special powers. They maybe morphed into Rubberman and squeezed through the six inch hole? Who writes this crap? NBC News, it may be time for a new Copy Editor. I am completely available for the job. NBC, you have my email address. Let me know, ok?
"When it's news, it's news to us." NBC
They said in the article that they were able to make a big hole in the wall near the 6-inch hole. Maybe you should apply for a writing job since you are so superior.
Like to know know how they was able to get away in the first place,, had to be a inside job,,
naw they always give inmates 200 HUNDRED feet of bedsheets.
This is the feel good, home for the Holidays story I've been waiting for...
If they rappelled down 20 stories on bed sheets they deserve to be free. Got to love how the feds spend so much time and energy chasing escapees who only robbed a bank....the money's insured...never understood why any guard or cop would care if the crooks got away with the loot or not....certainly ain;t worth getting shot over...
Represented himself. In the history of bank robbery trials going back just 5000 years, how many bank robbers got off by representing themselves? Ever. Zero. Jose, here, thought he would be the first one. Now Jody is out there spending the $500,000 loot Jose stashed away and Jose is preparing to defend himself against federal escape charges.
I am hoping the US Marshalls have shoot on sight orders. No need to pay for the scum that is still out there.
so they enlarged a 6 inch hole? thats one tough spork they had there.
ok hoodlums...ya gotta step it up the new record is 20 story's.
200 ft of knotted together bedsheets, 20 story's off the ground....wonder which one went first.....to test it....
There is a vast difference between "rappelling" and hanging on to a bedsheet rope.
200ft on bedsheets! They've got more Balls than Spaulding!
'I'm special!' I wonder where he got that idea?
You've gotta give them credit for an amazing escape.
reaaly? bedsheets? sounds more like adam sandlers next screenplay! they dont keep track of the damn sheets? theres more govt expense waste
hmmmm, sheets are missing again? I think they need to see who is getting the pay off for the extra sheets. Sounds like someone is on the take at this place but, go figure.....it's in Chicago and we all know about that place. Next thing you know Rod will be escaping next and run the Vegas to hide out there.
I don't believe it. A hospital don't have that many bedsheets.
The jail needs to use old bed sheets. Easier to tear while you are 20 stories up.
..stupid..they the feds and police do a profile on every place they have lived, every place you have been..get on a bus and go somewhere you have never been..
..stupid..they the feds and police do a profile on every place they have lived, every place you have been..get on a bus and go somewhere you have never been..