88-year-old Montana man who was getaway driver in bank robberies sentenced to 2 years in prison

BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — An 88-year-old Montana man has been sentenced to two years in a federal prison medical facility for being the getaway driver in two bank robberies in Billings last summer, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Montana said.

The man was sentenced Thursday after pleading guilty in February to two counts of bank robbery. He was ordered to pay nearly $3,100 in restitution and will be on supervised release for three years after he finishes his prison sentence.

U.S. District Court Judge Susan Watters ordered him to report to the U.S. Marshals Service, after which he would be sent to a Bureau of Prisons medical facility.

The man and his co-defendant were arrested after the second robbery in August 2023 in a car matching the description of the car involved in the first bank robbery just four days earlier, prosecutors said. The defendant told investigators he suggested he and the co-defendant rob banks to get money, as he had done in the past. The defendant pleaded guilty to bank robbery in 2008, when he was 72.