The scene at the Metropolitan Correctional Center and in Tinley Park, where authorities were searching for two escaped prisoners on Dec. 18, 2012. (Zbigniew Bzdak & Jose M. Osorio/Chicago Tribune)
Officials at a federal Loop jail discovered that two convicted bank robbers had escaped after employees arriving for work at about 7 a.m. today and saw a makeshift rope hanging from the outside of the high-rise facility, federal officials said in charging the two with escape.
Joseph "Jose" Banks and Kenneth Conley made good their escape from the Metropolitan Correctional Center after last being seen for a head count conducted at about 10 p.m. Monday, authorities said.
The two are believed to have scurried down ropes made from bedsheets from the high-rise cell they shared.
Authorities also revealed that in their cell guards found numerous articles of clothing and sheets piled under a blanket in both their beds to make it appear they were asleep.
The window in the cell was broken and the makeshift rope was tied to its bars and hanging down the south side of the MCC, authorities said.
Prosecutors charged both with escape in a criminal complaint filed this afternoon in federal court a few blocks from the scene of the escape.
Authorities said the two are believed to be traveling together and were reportedly last seen this morning in the Tinley Park area.
A widespread manhunt is underway by the FBI with the assistance of numerous federal, state and locallawenforcement agencies.
Both Banks and Conley were awaiting sentencing for bank robbery convictions. If they are captured and convicted of escape, they would face up to an additional five years in prison.
“A rope was fashioned out of bedsheets,’’ said a spokesman for the MCC. “I would imagine that they saved them up."
Conley and Banks, known as the Second-Hand Bandit who was convicted just last week, were first unaccounted for during a 5 a.m. head count, but it's unclear they were still inside the 27-story Metropolitan Correctional Center at the time, U.S. Marshal's Service spokeswoman Belkis Cantor said.
The makeshift rope could be seen dangling along the south side of the MCC, 71 W. Van Buren St.
The MCC spokesman declined to say whether any guards were under investigation or whether anything was smuggled into them or how the narrow cell window was widened.
Hours after the escape, SWAT teams forced their way into a Tinley Park house where a relative of Conley is believed to live. But no one was found inside, and FBI officials said they believe Conley and Banks had been there hours earlier.
The SWAT officers left the home after about 20 minutes and walked down the street with dogs as neighbors followed, taking pictures with their phones. About two blocks down, the officers searched the Metra stop.
A woman who answered at the home of a relative of Conley said it was "very upsetting for everyone" and declined further comment.
Banks’ cousin, Theresa Ann Banks, pleaded for Banks to turn himself in.
“I just don’t want to see him get hurt or killed,” she said with a shaky voice. “(The family) is trying to hold themselves together. We just have to have faith in God and hope everything goes right.”
Theresa Ann Banks said she received a call about the escape from Banks' father, who heard about it on the news.
When Joseph Banks was arrested in 2008, Theresa Ann Banks said she visited him whenever she had a chance. “When I went to see him, he was calm, he was humble, he was happy to see me,” she said. “He was very positive every time I would go.”
Banks was described as black, 37, 5 feet 8 inches tall and weighing 160 pounds. Conley is white, 38, 6 feet and 185 pounds.
