Prison for last suspect in botched Silo Restaurant robbery

The third and final participant in a botched 2007 restaurant robbery that resulted in the wounding of two people was sentenced to 13 years in prison Wednesday.

Kennedy Banks, 47, pleaded guilty to aggravated battery with a firearm in May in exchange for a promise that his sentence would not exceed 17 years.

Banks, Charles Knight, 45, and Edward Jackson, 40, all of Chicago, attempted to rob The Silo Restaurant near Lake Bluff on Dec. 9, 2007.

Lake County Assistant State's Attorney Ari Fisz said Jackson was an employee of the restaurant who set up the robbery with Knight, with whom Jackson had been in prison.

On the night of the robbery, Knight and Banks drove to the restaurant while Jackson was working, and the two visitors had a pizza and some drinks.

Knight pulled a .40-caliber semiautomatic pistol and announced the robbery, then he and Banks began herding customers toward the back of the building.

An employee broke from the crowd and ran for a door, and Knight fired once, sending a bullet through the arm of another employee and into the back of a third.

Both men survived their wounds, Fisz said.

Jackson was arrested within days of the shooting, and Knight was identified through a fingerprint he left on a glass at the restaurant.

Knight was captured in November 2008 when the FBI tracked him to a house in Fort Wayne, Ind., and arrested him without incident.

Knight, who is also charged with killing a man in Rockford during a 2005 dispute over a drug deal, was sentenced to 25 years in prison in March.

Jackson was sentenced to 13 years in prison last year.

Banks was arrested by Lake County sheriff's police in December 2008 at his home in Chicago after he was positively identified as the third person involved in the robbery.

All three men pleaded guilty to aggravated battery with a firearm and could have been sentenced to up to 30 years in prison if they had been convicted after a trial.