A 45-year-old Olney man who robbed the same Lisbon bank - and same teller - twice during a three-week period last fall was sentenced yesterday to 20 years in prison.

Jeffrey Wayne Malcolm, who stole $9,150 from teller Deborah Nicholson's window at Westminster Union Bank, pleaded guilty to two counts of common law robbery in March.

"I know I did the wrong thing. I want to do the right thing," Malcolm told Howard Circuit Judge Diane O. Leasure in a halting voice just before she handed him a 30-year sentence, suspending all but 20 years, and five years' probation. "I'm sick and tired of this lifestyle, and I can't live it no more."

But Leasure, who noted Malcolm's long criminal record, called the robberies "reprehensible."

"It's hard for the court to imagine being robbed not only once, but twice by the same individual," she said.

In a statement read in court yesterday, Nicholson, a long-time teller, said that after the first robbery, which took place after she had been at Westminster Union Bank for three weeks, her family wanted her to quit banking.

A few weeks later, she gave her two-weeks' notice - but was robbed again before she could finish the notice period.

"Now I still don't sleep well and have very little ambition to go anywhere," she said.

Malcolm, who robbed the Old Frederick Road bank Sept. 20 and Oct. 11, was caught after a motorist saw him run from the bank during the second robbery and followed his car, jotting down part of the license tag, according to court testimony.

That information led investigators to Malcolm's mother's home in the 18100 block of Darnell Drive. While they were there, Malcolm came home, but broke through the police cars when investigators tried to box him in.

He was found at the Tip Top Motel on U.S. 1 the next day, high on cocaine, Deputy State's Attorney I. Mathew Campbell testified during yesterday's hearing.

At the time of his arrest, Malcolm was working for his family's construction company but also supporting a $400-a-day drug habit, his lawyer, Jason A. Shapiro said.

The arrest was part of a long string of drug-related convictions, Campbell said yesterday. One of those cases, which involved a large quantity of the hallucinogenic drug PCP in the mid-1980s and resulted in a 10-year, nonparolable sentence, was also prosecuted by Campbell, when he worked in Montgomery County.

Each time Malcolm has gotten out, he has benefited from the support of family members who have offered him jobs and housing, Campbell said.

"He has made crime a habit," the prosecutor said. "He hasn't offended only under one set of circumstances - when he's been locked up."

But Shapiro, who argued for a lower sentence and for drug treatment, said his client is not violent and has lived a "pathetic life because of drugs."

After his last prison release in August 2000, Malcolm, who grew up in a religious Seventh-day Adventist family, was clean for a while, Shapiro said, but ran into old friends and "relapsed very, very hard." He has finally reached his bottom and is ready to clean up his life, Shapiro said.

"Basically, we're at a fork in the road," he said, adding that Malcolm's parents are in their 70s. "He wants to give them the gift of his sobriety before they are not around to see it."