A Gilbertville man will go to prison for stealing a truck, a forklift, and trying to steal two ATMs in Cedar Falls in 2025, according to the Waterloo Cedar Falls Courier. 56 year old John Bennett has been sentenced to four years and three months in federal prison. On May 3rd of last year, Bennett stole a GMC pickup from a Waterloo home and drove to Dupaco Credit Union on Brandilynn Boulevard in Cedar Falls. He then stole a forklift from a nearby construction site and used it to tip over an ATM at Dupaco. He was unable to load the ATM into the truck, however, so he moved on to Veridian Credit Union. He did load that one into the truck but alarms had alerted the authorities. A 40 minute, 100mph chase on I-380 ensued.
Bennett had done something very similar in 2017 when he used stolen vehicles to steal ATMs from convenience stores and credit unions. After prison on that occasion he landed a maintenance job at a meatpacking plant making more than $100,000 a year but bad investment decisions and a cryptocurrency scam put him into dire financial straits prior to his more recent crime. He has also been ordered to pay the credit unions nearly $250,000 for damages.