A serial bank robber was sentenced to 10 years in prison Monday in Howard County Circuit Court, after pleading guilty to stealing money from an Ellicott City bank in February.
Michael Francis Zemanick, 53, of Ellicott City, had been convicted of six other bank robberies, said Wayne Kirwan, a spokesman for the Howard County state?s attorney.
“Lucky seven was not his,” Kirwan said.
Zemanick attempted to rob a Columbia Bank on Feb. 15 and then successfully robbed a Bradford Bank 20 minutes later, according to court records.
A bank teller at theColumbia Bank on Frederick Road in West Friendship told police that a tall, slender man with a manila envelope approached the entrance and began to pull a ski mask over his face,
according to court records.
The teller locked the door and the man fled, she told police.
About 20 minutes later, an employee at Bradford Bank on Baltimore National Pike in Ellicott City called the police to report a robbery. The employee said a slender man with a dark knit hat approached her and held up a manila envelope that read, “This is robbery.”
The man then placed his right hand in his pocket and pointed it at the teller.
Believing it was a gun, the teller placed about $5,000 in cash in his envelope.
Howard County police posted fliers with photographs of Zemanick collected from the bank. He was arrested May 8 and admitted to robbing the Bradford Bank, according to court records.
Zemanick?s sentence will be served at the Maryland Department of Corrections concurrent with a violation of probation sentence he received three years ago in Carroll County.
