Serial bank robber who shouted “Dillinger lives!” sentenced

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A Southern California bank robber who gleefully yelled “John Dillinger lives!” during a holdup was sentenced to nearly 20 years in federal prison Tuesday, prosecutors said.

Todd Cannady, 61, of Palm Springs, was sentenced for a 2021 holdup but he acknowledged robbing a total of 10 banks in Southern California from 2018 to 2021, according to a statement from the U.S. attorney’s office.

Cannady pleaded guilty last year to robbing a Chase Bank branch using a “ghost gun”” on July 1, 2021 in the Riverside County city of Jurupa Valley.

He was arrested after a high-speed chase in a rented car during which he hit several other vehicles and crashed on a freeway, authorities said.

When he pleaded guilty, Cannady also acknowledged robbing nine banks in Manhattan Beach, Century City, Rancho Mirage, Torrance, Banning and Carson, prosecutors said.

He robbed the same Wells Fargo Bank branch in Rancho Mirage twice, authorities said.

In total, he stole nearly $758,000, authorities said.

The holdups began only four months after Cannady was released from state prison, prosecutors said. He spent more than two decades behind bars for a 1992 armed bank robbery and a 1982 conviction for robbing people at gunpoint in Los Angeles stores, authorities said.

From 1982 to 2021, Cannady “committed armed robberies of individuals or banks whenever he was not incarcerated,” prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memorandum.

Cannady “seemingly took great joy in his crimes,” yelling “John Dillinger Lives” during a 2019 holdup, according to the memorandum.