Bank robber sentenced to 3 1/2 years, again

PORTLAND – The mentally ill woman convicted of robbing a Bangor bank at gunpoint three years ago is scheduled to be released next month and reunited with her family after serving her 3 1/2-year sentence.

Mary Regina Elizabeth Gorsuch, 42, formerly of Brewer was sentenced Friday in U.S. District Court for the second time in less than two years for the May 6, 2002, armed robbery of the former Fleet Bank on Exchange Street.

Gorsuch, a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic, was not taking her prescribed medication at the time of the robbery.

Last month, the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered that Gorsuch be resentenced in light of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision last year that made the federal sentencing guidelines advisory rather than mandatory.

Her first sentence was reversed last year by the appeals court, but the three-judge panel revised its opinion last month and ordered the sentencing judge to consider the guidelines advisory rather than mandatory in line with the high court’s ruling.

U.S. District Judge George Singal on Friday imposed the same sentence – 42 months in federal prison and five years of probation – that he did 20 months ago.

“This sentence fully meets the need for fair and just punishment,” Singal said. “I determine that no additional prison time is necessary.”

Gorsuch’s husband, David Gorsuch, and their three children, now living in New Hampshire, attended the sentencing hearing. The family did not attend the two-day jury trial in June 2003 or her original sentencing in September 2003. Both were held in U.S. District Court in Bangor.

Clad in bright orange jail garb, Gorsuch grinned at her family when she was brought into the courtroom by U.S. marshals

None of the robbery victims or representatives from the bank attended the hearing in Portland.

Silent at her first sentencing, Gorsuch apologized Friday for the robbery.

“I’m sorry for what I did,” she said. “I wish it had never happened. I really do. I’m sorry for scaring them.”

On the day of the robbery, she pointed an unloaded gun at three tellers in the bank, recently renamed Bank of America, and demanded money. A few minutes later, Gorsuch was arrested on Washington Street in Bangor. She had a plastic bag containing more than $8,000. When police arrested her, she was in a “dazed and confused state,” Singal noted at her original sentencing.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Nancy Torreson, who prosecuted the case, on Friday urged Singal to impose a longer sentence because the defendant has a history of not taking her medication.

Gorsuch, however, acknowledged that she has a mental illness and needs to take medication.

Gorsuch is being held at a federal pre-release center in Portland, according to Bernstein. She is scheduled to be released on May 22.

Conditions of her probation include taking all prescribed medications and undergoing treatment for her mental illness.