A Palm Springs man started robbing banks 40 years ago. Now he's headed to prison — again

Christopher Damien, Palm Springs Desert Sun
·1 min read
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Deputies secure the area of a 2019 robbery at a Wells Fargo Bank branch near The River in Rancho Mirage. Serial robber Todd Cannady has now admitted to that crime and others.
Deputies secure the area of a 2019 robbery at a Wells Fargo Bank branch near The River in Rancho Mirage. Serial robber Todd Cannady has now admitted to that crime and others.

A Palm Springs man who served more than two decades in prison for a series of armed bank robberies in the 1990s was sentenced Tuesday to nearly 20 more years in prison for a second series of robberies throughout Southern California in recent years.

Federal prosecutors say Todd Eugene Cannady returned to robbing banks a mere four months after being released from state prison in early 2018.

He'd served over 20 years for the first offenses, which started in 1982 and ran into the 1990s.

Now 61, he pleaded guilty to 10 bank robberies in which he stole about $758,000, two of them at the same Wells Fargo branch in Rancho Mirage in 2019 and 2020.

U.S. District Judge Stanley Blumenfeld Jr. said during Cannady's sentencing hearing Tuesday that it is "hard to imagine crimes that are more serious. The court has seen them, but this ranks in the higher order of seriousness."

Cannady was finally arrested after the July 2021 robbery of a Chase Bank branch in Riverside, during which he used a firearm without a serial number, popularly known as a ghost gun, to threaten employees. The U.S. attorney's office said Cannady fled the scene in a rental car, triggering a high-speed pursuit ending in a collision on Interstate 215.

Cannady pleaded guilty to that crime and nine others last October. In addition to the two in Rancho Mirage, he robbed banks in Manhattan Beach, Century City, Torrance, Banning and Carson.

Prosecutors wrote in a sentencing brief that Cannady appeared to take "great joy in his crimes," attempting to align himself with an infamous Depression-era bank robber by yelling during a 2019 armed heist: "John Dillinger lives!"

Christopher Damien covers public safety and the criminal justice system. He can be reached at christopher.damien@desertsun.com or follow him at @chris_a_damien.

This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Serial bank robber from Palm Springs sent to prison again