A Gilbertville man who stole a pickup truck, borrowed a construction forklift to rip an ATM out of a Cedar Falls credit union, loaded the cash machine into the truck bed and then led officers on a 46-mile chase at 100 miles an hour down Interstate 380 has been sentenced to 51 months — more than four years — in federal prison, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Iowa announced on Friday, November 6. John Fitzgerald Bennett, 56, was sentenced on Thursday, November 5, in Cedar Rapids by U.S. District Court Chief Judge C.J. Williams.
Source: U.S. Attorney's Office, Northern District of Iowa (sentencing release, Nov. 6, 2026)
Bennett had pleaded guilty on June 4, 2026, to one count of credit union larceny, admitting the whole sequence in a plea agreement. As part of Thursday's sentence he was ordered to pay $246,676.46 in restitution to the victims of the scheme, and he must serve a three-year term of supervised release after the prison term ends. There is no parole in the federal system, the U.S. Attorney's Office noted, and Bennett is being held in the custody of the U.S. Marshal until he can be transported to a federal prison. The case is No. 25-CR-2068 in the Northern District of Iowa.
The night of May 3, 2025: a stolen truck, a stolen forklift, two credit unions
In his plea agreement, Bennett admitted that on May 3, 2025, he stole a pickup truck from a home in Waterloo, Iowa, and drove it to a parking lot in Cedar Falls, the neighbouring city in Black Hawk County. He then walked down the street and took a forklift from a construction site, and drove the forklift to a credit union in Cedar Falls, where he tried to use it to lift an interactive teller machine off the ground. The machine tipped over, and Bennett could not manoeuvre the forklift to steal it.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice (guilty-plea release)
He did not stop there. Bennett drove the forklift further down the street to a second credit union and this time successfully used it to steal an ATM. He drove the forklift, with the ATM, back to the parking lot where he had stashed the stolen pickup, used the forklift to move the cash machine into the back of the pickup, and drove away — a sequence local radio station KHAK described as sounding like the plot of a low-budget heist movie.
Source: KHAK (Cedar Rapids)
Alarms, stop sticks and a truck that ended on its rims on I-380
Officers responded to alarms from both credit unions and found Bennett in the stolen pickup. He fled, and the chase ran for approximately 40 minutes over a total of 46 miles, including on Interstate 380 — the four-lane highway that links Waterloo and Cedar Falls with Cedar Rapids and is one of eastern Iowa's main freight and commuter corridors. Bennett reached speeds of 100 miles per hour in a 65-mile-per-hour zone. He drove over multiple sets of stop sticks, which deflated most of the truck's tires; by the time the pickup finally stopped moving, the tires were gone, the tire rims and running boards were resting on the ground, and the front end was damaged. The stolen ATM was still in the back of the truck.
The $246,676.46 restitution order covers the losses Bennett admitted causing across the whole scheme — a stolen and wrecked pickup truck, a damaged interactive teller machine at the first credit union, the stolen ATM at the second, and the damage left behind at both buildings and in the chase. Federal judges set restitution from the victims' documented losses, which is why the figure runs to the cent.
Not his first forklift ATM job: the earlier Waterloo spree
Federal prosecutors stressed that Bennett, 56, had done this before. He already had a prior federal conviction for one count of credit union burglary and one count of credit union larceny. In that earlier federal case, the Justice Department said Bennett and an accomplice, Cody Laughlin, admitted a string of five burglaries around Waterloo in 2017 — including ramming a credit union's doors with a vehicle and using a forklift to take an ATM containing more than $57,000. That spree caused more than $217,000 in losses to ten separate victims, and Bennett received a 46-month federal prison term in the earlier case. The May 2025 Cedar Falls thefts came after that sentence had been served.
Who investigated, and who prosecuted
The 2025 case was investigated by the Cedar Falls Police Department, the Black Hawk County Sheriff's Office, the Waterloo Police Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and it was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Devra T. Hake. Credit union larceny is a federal offence because credit unions are federally insured, which is why a street-level theft in Cedar Falls was charged and sentenced in federal court in Cedar Rapids rather than in state court in Black Hawk County.
What it means locally — and for drivers who shared I-380 that night
For the Cedar Valley, the case closes a crime that damaged two neighbourhood credit unions and tied up police from two cities and the county sheriff in a late-night pursuit. For everyone who uses Interstate 380 — including the truck drivers who run the Waterloo–Cedar Rapids–Iowa City corridor at night — the detail that stands out in the court record is the risk: a stolen pickup riding on shredded tires at 100 miles an hour for 46 miles is exactly the kind of chase state and federal agencies say endangers uninvolved motorists, which is one reason the loss figure and the prison term both run high for a property crime with no reported injuries.
What happens next
Bennett remains in U.S. Marshal custody and will be transported to a federal prison to begin the 51-month term; the Bureau of Prisons decides which facility, and that designation had not been announced in the sentencing release. The three years of supervised release begin only after he completes the prison term, and the $246,676.46 restitution obligation survives his release — the government can collect it for years under federal law. Because there is no parole in the federal system, Bennett will serve the great bulk of the 51 months, subject only to credit for good conduct.