New York Post

Life in jail? Oh, cheese!

- By JAMIE SCHRAM jschram@nypost.com

This guy’s a real-life hamburglar.

The getaway driver in a gunpoint Michigan bank robbery was done in by a half-eaten Wendy’s cheeseburg­er he had left behind and now is going to prison for the rest of his life, prosecutor­s revealed to The Post.

Dominick Johnson, 34, of Chicago, was sentenced Wednesday to 72 years in a federal penitentia­ry after he was convicted on charges related to seven bankk robberies, according to Assistant US Attorneys Hagen Frank and Justin Presant.

In January 2015, Johnson was the getaway driver in a gunpoint robbery committed by his half-brother, Nathan Benson, at the Old National Bank in Oshtemo Township.

Benson dashed out of the bank with about $8,000 when a dye pack exploded in the bag of money, drenching the bills in red ink, Frank told The Post during a phone interview Friday.

Benson tossed the cash sack as he jumped inside Johnson’s car, which sped off in the “wickedly cold and snowy weather,” Frank said.

The vehicle slid off the road around the corner from the bank and got stuck in a ditch, Frank said.

As they were pushing the car back onto the roadway, Johnson made the fateful mistake of throwing his partially eaten Wendy’s cheeseburg­er onto the ground, Frank said.

The robbers managed to drive away, but a retired teacher who lived nearby alerted the responding officers that he saw the two thieves talking outsidesid­e Johnson’s car near the ditch, Frank said. Investigat­ors from the Kalamazoo County Sheriff’s Office and the FBI combed the area and stumbled upon the juicy piece of evidence.

They tested the burger and got a DNA hit on Johnson, who was arrested in February 2015, according to Frank.

“The burger was a key piece of evidence in the case. It proved he was outside the bank and outside the car,” Frank told The Post.

Witnesses and phone records linked Benson to the robbery spree. He was arrested in the spring of 2015 while serving time in state prison for an unrelated offense.

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