RICHMOND (AP) -- The graying, balding "Granddad Bandit" who has admitted to holding up 25 banks in 14 states is set to be sentenced in Virginia. One of the banks on his hit list was a Solvay Bank branch in Syracuse in 2009.
Fifty-three-year-old Michael Francis Mara pleaded guilty in February to robbing two Virginia banks. He acknowledged heists from New York to Texas from 2008 until his capture last summer.
Mara is scheduled to be sentenced Wednesday in federal court in Richmond. His plea deal calls for him to spend 25 years in prison and pay more than $83,000 in restitution.
The FBI dubbed Mara the "Granddad Bandit" and plastered bank surveillance photos of him on billboards around the country in August. He was arrested a week later in Louisiana after authorities received a tip from someone who saw the billboard.
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