LITTLE FALLS, Minn. – A former police chief of the Mille Lacs Band has been sentenced to more than 28 years in prison for sexually assaulting a child beginning around 2009 when she was six or seven and continuing for six years.
In 2021, the victim recorded a phone call when 75-year-old Russell Bankey of Garrison admitted to the abuse and apologized. When she asked why, he said “I guess I was lonesome.”
Bankey’s attorney asked the judge for probation, arguing Bankey is remorseful, has the support of his family, and experienced “horrific abuse” as a child.
In a separate case, Bankey is accused of assaulting another child on more than one occasion in 1991.
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