A 67-year-old Frederick, Maryland, man has been charged in several area bank robberies this summer.
Police say Steven Gregory Gass, 67, was dubbed “old man bandit” for his role in multiple bank robberies going back 45 years.
Gass was arrested on July 14 after he attempted to rob a Wells Fargo Bank in the 600 block of North Frederick Avenue in Gaithersburg, Maryland around 9:30 a.m.
Officers say a man wearing a light-colored fisherman’s hat, sunglasses and a large face mask entered the bank and approached a bank teller. The suspect, later identified as Gass, handed the teller a handwritten note saying the bank was being robbed. The teller walked away, and another bank employee hit the silent alarm. According to police, Gass left the bank without receiving any money.
Montgomery County Police officers saw Gass leaving the area of North Frederick Avenue in a black Honda Civic, and followed him to a Park and Ride on Rt. 80, near the I-270 exit ramp, police said.
Officers then approached Gass and arrested him. During the course of the investigation, detectives connected Gass to a June 18 bank robbery on Old Georgetown Road in Bethesda.
In that incident, Gass entered the Truist Bank in the 10400 block of Old Georgetown Road around 10:30 a.m. wearing a large fisherman’s hat and blue face mask. He passed a handwritten note to the bank teller saying they were being robbed and left the bank with an undisclosed amount of money, according to police.
Police say Gass robbed a bank in Montgomery County in 1977 and in 2010, he pleaded guilty to robbing 19 banks between 2008 and 2009 in Florida.
He was released from prison in 2019 for medical reasons and moved back to Maryland, where he lived with his parents until his arrest, police said.
Gass is also accused of robbing a bank in Baltimore County, police said.
On, July 21, Montgomery and Baltimore County Police served a residential search warrant on his parents’ home in Frederick and evidence of the robberies was discovered.
Gass is currently being held at the Montgomery County Central Processing Unit without bond on the two Montgomery County cases, and Baltimore County has obtained an arrest warrant, charging him with one count of robbery, police said.
