A daring jail breaker who rappelled to freedom from his 17th floor cell at the downtown Metropolitan Correctional Center was sentenced to 36 years in prison Wednesday afternoon for a series of bank robberies by a federal judge who called him “narcissistic” and “dangerous.”
Failed fashion designer Joseph “Jose” Banks, 39, delivered a 20-minute, rambling and self-serving stream of consciousness speech during which he apologized to his family and his victim before he was sentenced.
He told the judge “I feel like I was pushed out into a world that was not ready for me… and I was not ready for it.”
But U.S. District Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer said Banks’ claim that he was anti-gun was “remarkable” given that he had stuck up four banks and made off with more than half a million dollars.
“His description of himself can only be described as narcissistic,” the judge said, calling his crimes “hideous and hurtful” to bank staff who were traumatized when he held a gun to their heads.
She also said she didn’t buy his claim that he was forced to escape from his cell at the MCC in December 2012 by his cellmate, noting that Banks had sewn together a 170-foot rope from bedsheets and dental floss using his skills as a seamstress.
Banks’ lawyer, Beau Brindley, delivered an impassioned argument for leniency, saying Banks poor upbringing hadn’t allowed him to express his artistic talents.
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And in court papers filed before Wednesday’s two and a half hour hearing, Brindley wrote that Banks’ cellmate Kenneth Conley had “threatened to kill Mr. Banks if he did not assist him or if he told anyone about what he had seen” in the escape.
And while Banks “does not deny that he constructed the rope and harness” that he and Conley used to rappel down the outside of the prison from bedsheets and dental floss, “Banks was indeed afraid” of Conley, who he believed was being protected by prison guards, Brindley wrote.
Banks was convinced the loud noises Conley made bashing a hole in the side of their cell in the high-rise jail could only have been tolerated if guards were in on the scam, he added.
Brindley — who is himself federally indicted for allegedly soliciting perjury in an unrelated case — had hoped the argument will sway U.S. District Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer into handing Banks a more lenient sentence of 15 years or less.
But prosecutors urged Pallmeyer to hand Banks a 45-year sentence for his run of bank heists. Though they dropped escape charges against Banks last year, they say the high profile jailbreak should be held against him.
Banks, known as the “Second Hand Bandit” thanks to the thrift-store disguises he donned during a series of heists, faced a maximum of 80 years.
He spent just two days on the run following his December 2012 escape before he was caught. Brindley argued that Banks never harmed anyone during his time on the loose, adding that he simply “went back to the only neighborhood he had ever known and awaited inevitable arrest.”
Conley — a fellow bank robber — managed to stay free for 18 days but is now serving a 23-year sentence. He told the judge who sentenced him in February to “stick it right up your ass.”
