Serial Bank Robber Sentenced to Federal Prison

A Georgia man with multiple bank robbery convictions has been sentenced to federal prison for the second time.

David Wayne Stanley, 59, of Cochran, Ga., was sentenced to 160 months in prison after pleading guilty to Bank Robbery, said Jill E. Steinberg, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Georgia. U.S. District Court Chief Judge R. Stan Baker ordered Stanley to pay $6,677 in restitution and to serve three years of supervised release upon completion of is prison term. Stanley also must serve 12 additional months in prison, consecutive to his new sentence, after Chief Judge Baker revoked Stanley’s supervised release for committing the robbery while under sentence for a prior bank robbery conviction.

“It should be abundantly clear that repeated stints in prison have yet to prevent David Wayne Stanley from committing additional violent crimes,” said U.S. Attorney Steinberg. “This significant sentence will protect the community while he’s behind bars, and hold him accountable for his most recent crime.”

As described in court documents and testimony, in October 2023, Stanley robbed two tellers at the Wells Fargo Bank on Ogeechee Road in Savannah by telling them he had a gun and demanding cash from their registers. Investigators from the Chatham County Police Department and the FBI, with assistance from U.S. Probation Services, identified Stanley’s vehicle as the getaway car, and later arrested him at his residence.

Stanley’s prior felony convictions include a 2016 federal conviction for a Savannah bank robbery for which he served time in prison, and he was on supervised release at the time of the 2023 robbery. Additionally, Stanley previously served a state prison sentence in Texas for the robbery of seven banks in 2009, and he faces multiple charges for bank robberies in Texas that occurred in the days before the October 2023 Savannah robbery.

“Stanley’s prior prison time was apparently not enough of a teaching moment for him because he returned to his bank robbing ways while he was still on parole for the last bank robbery he committed,” said Will Clarke, Senior Supervisory Special Agent of FBI Atlanta’s Savannah office. “Thanks to the assistance of our partners with the Chatham County Police Department, he’ll have a long stint in federal prison to think about what he’ll do the next time he is released.”

“This is an example of the excellent work our Criminal Investigations Division does every day,” said Chatham County Police Department Acting Chief Julie Tolbert. “Our detectives quickly identified the suspect, and had him in custody within days of him committing this crime. We’re proud of the tireless efforts of all of the law enforcement officers who took an active part in making sure this case was solved quickly.”

The case was investigated by the FBI and the Chatham County Police Department, and prosecuted for the United States of America by Assistant U.S. Attorney Bradley R. Thompson and Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Makeia R. Jonese.