A 68-year-old man who spent 2023 terrorizing bank branches along Michigan Avenue while he was supposed to be on federal supervised release has been sentenced to 76 years in prison. Joseph Donelson Jr. was convicted this year on four counts of bank robbery and attempted bank robbery, and U.S. District Judge Steven C. Seeger handed down the sentence on September 1.
According to ABC7 Chicago, Donelson was on parole for other bank robberies when he targeted the four downtown institutions, and surveillance images captured the heists as they unfolded. In one robbery, he was seen sprawled over a bank counter reaching for cash, and per the sentencing memorandum, bank employees experienced terror during the crimes, with one suffering an injury and another left with lasting psychological trauma.
The crimes occurred between October and December 2023 in Chicago's Loop and Streeterville areas. Court records from the U.S. Department of Justice detail how the spree unfolded almost entirely along a single stretch of Michigan Avenue: an attempted robbery and a robbery at Citibank's 180 N. Michigan Ave. branch on October 11 and November 7, a robbery at 539 N. Michigan Ave. on December 8, and an attempted robbery at 100 S. Michigan Ave. on December 19. During the spree, Donelson struck a bank teller in the face during one heist and leapt over the counter to grab cash during another, according to the same filing.
A Familiar Target for a Repeat Offender
This was not Donelson's first run at Chicago's downtown banks. He committed the 2023 robberies while still under federal court-supervised release stemming from a 2007 conviction in the Northern District of Illinois, when he robbed two banks in the Loop and was sentenced to 20 years in prison, according to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. In other words, Donelson returned to the same downtown commercial corridor almost immediately after completing a multi-decade federal sentence for nearly identical crimes.
Following an eight-day trial earlier this year, a federal jury convicted Donelson on all four counts before Judge Seeger imposed sentence. Assistant U.S. Attorney Minje Shin argued that Donelson's crimes demonstrated utter disrespect for the law and required a severe sentence as just punishment. The prosecution was led by Shin under U.S. Attorney Andrew S. Boutros and FBI Chicago Acting Special Agent-in-Charge Ryan Whalen, with investigative assistance from the Chicago Police Department, per the Justice Department's announcement.
How the Math Adds Up to 76 Years
The eye-popping sentence traces directly back to federal statute. Under 18 U.S.C. § 2113, basic bank robbery carries up to 20 years in prison per count, but committing an assault or putting lives in danger during the offense raises the statutory maximum to 25 years per count, according to Brandon Sample PLC. With four separate counts involving physical violence against bank staff, those maximums stacked into the 76-year total.
Donelson's sentence dwarfs other recent federal bank robbery cases out of Chicago. Just days earlier, Hoodline reported that Jawad H. Hakeem received 19 years for two 2023 Loop bank robberies that included a shootout inside a branch. In a separate Northern District of Illinois case last month, 26-year-old German Campos Jr. was sentenced to 14 years for six gunpoint bank robberies across four Chicago suburbs between October 2023 and August 2024, a case Hoodline also covered in its report on the Franklin Park bank bandit's sentencing.
Why Repeat Robbers Keep Coming Back
Donelson's pattern of returning to the same type of target across decades fits broader criminological trends. Research compiled by the ASU Center for Problem-Oriented Policing shows that bank robbery carries a high rate of repeat offending, with national FBI statistics indicating that roughly 31% of identified bank robbers participate in four or more heists. Federal enforcement data published by the FBI also shows that bank robbery investigations maintain one of the highest clearance and arrest rates among major violent felonies, owing to extensive bank surveillance and forensic evidence collection.
For a 68-year-old defendant, a 76-year sentence effectively forecloses any possibility of release. The case underscores how aggressively federal courts in Chicago have moved against repeat, violent bank robbers who reoffend while under supervised release, particularly when prior convictions and physical harm to victims are part of the record.
