HAMMOND, Ind. (STMW) - A man's plea agreement on a charge of bank robbery in Northwest Indiana was almost derailed Wednesday until a binding agreement was taken out, according to court records.

Edward Eason, 59, of Chicago, attempted to plead guilty Wednesday morning to the one charge connecting him to four bank robberies in Northwest Indiana from November 2007 to February 2008.

However, Hammond, Ind., U.S. District Court Judge James Moody rejected the plea agreement, which would have forced him to sentence Eason to whatever minimum term the sentencing guidelines said he should serve.

Normally, judges take the guidelines under advisement but can go outside of them for sentencing.

U.S. attorneys later filed another plea agreement, which was similar to the first but does not force Moody to sentence Eason to the minimum range.

It still includes recommendations by U.S. prosecutors that Moody go with that sentence and that the time be served along with a 13-year sentence that Eason is already serving in Illinois on similar charges through the U.S. District Court in Chicago.

The new plea agreement also includes a recommendation that whatever sentence Eason receives be backdated to when he was arrested in 2008, since when he has been in prison.

Moody took the new plea agreement under advisement and will decide whether to accept it during sentencing, according to federal court records.

A sentencing hearing has not been scheduled yet.

--Northwest Indiana Post-Tribune, via the Sun-Times Media Wire