‘A’s Bandit’ Pleads Guilty to 8 Robberies : Crime: David Malley could face a 160-year sentence for the attention-getting series of bank holdups, but 10 to 12 years is considered more likely.

David Warren Malley, the so-called “A’s Bandit” suspected of a record 29 bank robberies in San Diego County, pleaded guilty Tuesday to robbing eight banks of nearly $10,000 for his personal use.

Although he technically could be sentenced to 160 years in prison and fined $2 million--20 years and $250,000 for each count--Malley is likely to get 10 to 12 years on the eight counts, his attorney, David Bartick, said.

The government has refused to dismiss 20 more counts against Malley and has asked Chief U.S. District Judge Judith N. Keep that they be taken into account at his sentencing Dec. 18. Of the 29 robberies, he was charged with 28. He was suspected of but not charged with a 29th.

In all, nearly $35,000 was taken during the three-month spree, which lasted from last February to April. The series generated intense curiousity because the robber appeared so calm and collected and avoided numerous police stakeouts.

Malley, a 22-year-old New York native with a criminal history, said from his jail cell Tuesday that the government already has picked its eight best cases, and there is no evidence he robbed other banks.

“I’m very comfortable about the other cases,” he said. “If they want to go to trial, let them. In the best interest of justice, they should dismiss those counts. They haven’t got a case. I have airtight alibis.”

For the first time Tuesday, Malley spoke freely about the “A’s Bandit series,” so named because the robber wore an Oakland A’s baseball cap during some of the crimes.

The first robbery was a dare from his roommates, he said, who had been reading a newspaper article about a bank heist and decided it would be easy to pull off. “Sort of like ‘Truth or Dare,’ ” he said, referring to the Madonna film in which the game figures prominently.

The Ocean Beach branch of Peninsula Bank was near his apartment, and it was hit Feb. 11, the second in the series. Malley pleaded guilty Tuesday to making off with $1,142 after handing a teller a demand note that said he had a gun and would use it if she didn’t empty her cash drawer.

“I presented a demand note to the teller and said that I had a gun and that if he didn’t or she didn’t give me the money, I would shoot,” Malley said during Tuesday’s hearing.

Bank of America was just down the block on Newport Avenue. Malley pleaded guilty to making off with $2,350 on Feb. 15, using the same demand note.

The Security Pacific Bank in Pacific Beach was hit Feb. 21; Malley admitted getting $890. The next day, three banks were hit within six hours. Malley pleaded guilty to robbing a Home Savings in San Diego of $559 but not banks in Point Loma or Clairemont.

He has admitted robbing a Wells Fargo in Pacific Beach of $971 on March 4, a Security Pacific in La Jolla of $1,424 on March 28 and a Bank of America in Poway of $1,767 on April 16. The government found “bait bills” from the Poway branch in Malley’s University City apartment, he said.

On April 26, at San Diego Trust & Savings on Regents Road in University City, police said Malley ran from the bank to his rental car as two bank customers chased him. He admitted robbing the bank of $496.

In Tuesday’s interview, Malley said one of the men could have caught him easily but reached down to pick up the money that Malley dropped instead of chasing him further. Malley was arrested several hours later after stepping out of his University City apartment.

The A’s cap that became the symbol of the clean-cut but prolific robber with the nonchalant, unhurried style following robberies had no significance whatsoever.

“It was one of the baseball caps that my roommate had,” he said. “I just grabbed it and put it on. I wore different hats. I didn’t really follow any of the news coverage until after I got arrested, and then (an FBI agent) said, ‘Want to see my photo album?’ I was like, ‘Not really.’ ”

At the height of the series, people such as the waiter at George’s at the Cove, a La Jolla restaurant, would suggest to Malley that he looked like the A’s Bandit. He laughed.

Throughout the robberies, Malley never used a gun and has not been charged with any armed robbery. He used the same threatening demand note, from which investigators have lifted his fingerprints, he said, because it made him sound as if he were serious.

“I didn’t look at it like a joke because I saw the tellers’ faces when they saw the note,” he said. “But it was so easy. I never thought I would get caught. It’s so easy after a while. If someone had just pulled out a gun at the bank, I would have given up and offered no resistance.”

Most of the banks he robbed were in Ocean Beach and Pacific Beach near his apartment, a fact that police spokesman Bill Robinson suggested early in the investigation might be likely. At times, Malley would rob a bank, sit in a car and use a stopwatch to measure how long it would take police to arrive.

Malley said he was dealing drugs and used most of the money for simple things like rent and to help out his roommates. He suggested that others were involved in helping rob banks and even committed two of the crimes themselves, but nobody else has been charged in the series.

On Tuesday, wearing an olive prison jumpsuit, blue slippers, and white socks, the lanky, auburn-haired Malley stood silently with his hands clasped in front of him, whispering to his lawyer Bartick each time Judge Keep asked a question.

Asked why he took the money, Malley said it was “for personal use” and denied that he used it to support a drug habit.

Prosecutor Patrick O’Toole said the “A’s Bandit” series was neither romantic nor exciting, as it was described in early news accounts, and stressed that the government had offered no plea bargain with Malley.

At a hearing scheduled for Dec. 2, Keep will hear O’Toole’s legal arguments that she consider the 20 counts he faces as part of his sentence.

If other charges are considered and included in Malley’s sentence, O’Toole said, he will consider dropping the remaining counts. Keep said recent court rulings suggest that Malley’s outstanding charges should not be considered.

Malley said he still believes he made a good deal and that to go to trial may have resulted in a 20- to 25-year sentence.

Next, he said, is “a book and a movie. I have attorneys working on it right now.”