Prolific ATM Robber Scheduled to Get Prison Term : Crime: Ex-convict is believed to have committed most such holdups. He has pleaded guilty to 37 charges.

A Hollywood man considered to be perhaps the most prolific automatic teller machine bandit in the United States is scheduled to be sentenced to prison today , authorities said.

Curtis K. Taylor, an ex-convict with an apparent penchant for hard drugs and a “desperate” need for cash, went on a crime spree in 1988, robbing 25 victims throughout the city of at least $3,000 and trying to rob another 12, according to Deputy Dist. Atty. Karen Friedenberg. Taylor, 34, has been in custody since his arrest in October, 1988. Under a plea arrangement, he pleaded guilty to 37 robbery and attempted robbery charges stemming from holdups of ATM customers in Hollywood, downtown Los Angeles, San Fernando Valley and elsewhere, Friedenberg said. On many occasions, she said, Taylor threatened to use a gun, although it was later learned that he apparently was using a toy pistol.

“He was so bold and brazen, he would just go up to the victims, not draw attention to himself, and get away with it,” Friedenberg said. “It is amazing how many ATM robberies this one individual did commit. . . . He probably committed a lot more that we don’t know about.”

Because he used the threat of a gun, Taylor could have faced more than 65 years in prison when sentenced by Superior Court Judge J. D. Smith.

In asking for a sentence of 28 years, Friedenberg described Taylor as a career criminal with a prior robbery conviction who “will continue to be a threat.”

Few statistics exist on the number of ATM crimes locally and nationwide. Most police departments, including Los Angeles, include ATM holdups with other types of robberies.

F. Barry Schreiber, a Minnesota-based professor of criminal justice and an expert on ATM crimes, has been surveying apprehension of such bandits by police departments nationally. He said Taylor far outpaces a Cleveland-area man, who is suspected of committing 15 such robberies, as the nation’s most prolific ATM bandit on record.

In one robbery authorities said was typical, Taylor approached a victim who was punching in his ATM code number. After warning that he had a concealed gun, Taylor said: “Punch $200 into the machine or I’ll blow you away,” according to a police report. In another, according to police reports, Taylor told a woman withdrawing money to “act like we are boyfriend and girlfriend,” before pushing her aside and taking out $200--the maximum amount allowable. As he was leaving, he told the woman: “I’m sorry. I need the money for drugs,” the report said.

Prosecutors agreed to the compromise because Taylor was not using a real gun, and because he never intended to hurt his victims, according to Taylor’s lawyer, Rand Rubin.

“He made a point of never injuring anyone,” Rubin said. “If someone told him they would not cooperate and give up their money, he would just walk away.”

Rubin described the plea bargain as “a good deal for both sides,” but said police unfairly used his client as a scapegoat in settling other ATM crimes that they had not solved.

“He does admit he participated in a substantial number of (robberies) but not all of them,” Rubin said. “He feels the police were cleaning the books on all of them.”

Because he has been in jail for more than two years, Taylor could be released from prison in 11 years with time off for work and good behavior, Rubin said.