Granddad guilty

The graying, balding bank robber who was dubbed the "Granddad Bandit" as he patiently held up more than two dozen banks in 13 states was sentenced last week to 25 years in prison.

Michael Francis Mara, 53, must pay back the more than $83,000 he stole during a 20-month spree, in which he entered banks without a disguise, calmly gave tellers letters requesting a few thousand dollars and eluded capture. ('Old School Criminal') The Richmond Times-Dispatch reports that Mara will be required to pay back the money in monthly installments of at least $100.

"He is deeply remorseful and shameful of his actions," federal public defender Elizabeth Wilson told Spencer. She declined to comment further after the hearing.

Prosecutors portrayed Mara as a dual character: a socially awkward, mentally depressed man who longed to be an emergency worker and a conniving career criminal who has been in and out of prisons across the nation since he was 18.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Roderick Young said 25 years may be a life sentence given Mara's poor health, but it is needed because Mara likely would commit more crimes. Mara has been undeterred by prior incarceration, he said, doing "life on the installment plan."

"Certainly, there is a strong need to protect unsuspecting bank tellers and bank customers all over the United States from a serial bank robber such as Mara," Young said in court documents.

Mara's public defender urged leniency based on Mara's depression, physical ailments such as gastro-intestinal problems and the fact that he was never violent during the robberies and cooperated with authorities after his arrest.

Wilson asked that Mara be placed in a penitentiary with a medical facility close to his wife in Louisiana.

Patsy Mara said she would stand by her husband, whom she knew as a different person from the man who committed the crimes.

"Exactly nine months ago today the FBI arrested a man I never knew, a man that was never a part of my relationship with my husband, a man my husband never allowed to enter our home or our life together," she said in an e-mail. "I have loved and supported the man I knew Michael Mara to be and in return have been blessed to find that he is ever more than I had imagined or hoped for."

She said she wished naysayers could "know the love of a forgiving God."

After Mara's sentencing, he asked to shake Young's hand, and the prosecutor wished the robber good luck in prison.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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