Suspect's crime trail lengthens

An accused bank robber arrested in Marysville after a police chase faces far deeper trouble — in the form of accusations of attempted murder and more heists over a wide swath of California.

Michael Anthony Koselka was booked Friday night at the Yuba County Jail, hours after Marysville police say he held up the local Tri Counties Bank and led officers on a downtown car pursuit. He was held without bail.

The 54-year-old Aptos man — a onetime law student who served prison time for a 1995 bank robbery spree — had the attempted murder charge added to accusations of armed robbery, assault with a deadly weapon, evasion of police and drug possession.

The charges resulted from a road pursuit that followed a heist just before 5 p.m. at Tri Counties, located at 729 E St. Police said Koselka used his Saab 9-5 sedan to ram three patrol cars before a fourth butted his car into the side of a building.

On Saturday, Marysville police identified him as the man listed on the FBI's most wanted bulletin as the "Sleeves Bandit" — reportedly for his habit of wearing fake tattoo patches on his arms — and connected him to 16 heists from Monterey to greater Los Angeles since November.

Media reports have described the "Sleeves Bandit" brandishing a handgun during robberies and attacking a teller with pepper spray during at least one theft.

The FBI has joined the investigation, police announced. The six-minute chase immediately followed the first report of the robbery at 4:54 p.m. Patrol cars pursued Koselka's car west, east and south at speeds up to 60 mph.

As the chase approached Rideout Memorial Hospital, a police car tapped the Saab and caused it to spin out into a parking lot at Fifth and H streets, but Koselka managed to regain control and strike three patrol vehicles, according to police.

Finally, another patrol car bumped Koselka's car into an office suite a block south, at 330 H St.

Koselka was treated across the street at the hospital before being taken to jail.

Sachs said officers found cash in Koselka's wrecked car, but the amount of money stolen and the weapon used remained unknown late Saturday. Attempts to reach FBI agents in Sacramento were unsuccessful.

According to media reports, Koselka attended Santa Clara University and Hastings College of the Law of San Francisco, but started robbing banks to pay for a cocaine habit.

He was arrested in October 1995 in connection to nearly 20 holdups in the Bay Area, pleaded guilty and received a 10-year federal prison sentence.

Koselka's arrest marked the second time in less than two years that law enforcement in Yuba County arrested a serial bank robber.

In December 2007, a California Highway Patrol officer nabbed Arthur Eli Cheney, then 64, on Highway 70 north of the Erle Road exit.

Cheney, dubbed the "Highway 101 Bandit," was driving a Mercedes-Benz CL500 that matched a description in an alert.

Last year, Cheney pleaded guilty to 20 counts of bank robbery and was sentenced by a federal judge in San Francisco to 90 months in prison, according to court records. The bank jobs netted about $50,000.

Contact Appeal-Democrat reporter Howard Yune at 749-4708 or hyune@appealdemocrat.com.