Suspect in 29 S.D. Bank Robberies Denies Guilt : Crime: Alleged ‘A’s Bandit’ thinks authorities linked him to the holdups because of his prison record.

SAN DIEGO — The man accused of being the A’s Bandit beckoned the media to his jailhouse Thursday, then steadfastly denied he had anything to do with robbing 29 banks in San Diego.

“I’ve done a lot of bad things in my life, but I didn’t rob 29 banks,” said David Warren Malley, 21, the clean-cut, boyish-looking young man who was arrested last Friday in connection with the string of bank heists that set a city record.

Instead, he said, police and the FBI are “hanging their hats” on his out-of-state criminal record and problem childhood in an effort to convict him.

In an unusual 45-minute interview from the downtown Metropolitan Correctional Center, Malley said his troubled past--from a youth spent in and out of foster homes in Upstate New York to his convictions for passing bad checks and possessing a stolen car--are being unfairly used by authorities to link him to the robbery series.

“They needed a place to hang their hat,” said the gangly, 6-foot Malley, who wears his reddish hair close-cropped and has a skull-and-crossbones tattoo on his left arm. “I’m on parole. I have a criminal history. I lived in the area (of some of the robberies). I happened to fit the picture.”

Police took Malley into custody Friday as a suspect in the robbery of a San Diego Trust & Savings branch in University City after tracing him to his apartment through a checkbook he dropped nearby. A teller at the bank later identified him as the bank robber, police said.

Malley said he robbed no bank that day, nor any of the other 28, which became nationally known as the “A’s Bandit series” because a man wearing the green and gold cap of the Oakland Athletics committed the first seven.

The robber had authorities baffled for nearly three months beginning in early February when he embarked on a swift-moving bank robbery spree that took him from downtown San Diego to Del Mar and dozens of banks in between.

Malley said he had been recovering from strep throat last Friday and had slept until about noon, when he went for a walk near the Trieste Villa Apartments in University City.

He said he had locked himself out of the apartment and had to get a maintenance man to let him back in. Shortly after he reentered his apartment, he walked back outside into the courtyard, when a group of men started running toward him and pointing guns. He said he started to run, then stopped when they shouted that they were police.

Even now, Malley said he has no idea how police got his checkbook and identification cards, which they used to find him. He said he normally leaves those items in his car and that’s probably where police found them.

Federal authorities, who are prosecuting Malley, said Thursday during a bail hearing that they have a great deal more on the young man.

For instance, Assistant U.S. Atty. Pat O’Toole said that searches made this week by FBI agents have turned up three demand notes with Malley’s fingerprints on them. O’Toole did not say whether those notes were actually used in robberies, however.

O’Toole also said that searches turned up 15 “bait bills,” or specially marked notes taken in robberies, and clothes that agents believe the A’s Bandit wore in some of the robberies. But O’Toole did not provide details.

FBI agents also have learned that Malley wore an Oakland A’s baseball cap when he first inquired about moving into the University City apartment, O’Toole said. That, he said, could be evidence suggesting a connection with the string of 29 robberies.

O’Toole said it could be weeks before authorities seek formally to link Malley to the 28 other holdups, though he is considered their prime suspect.

Malley said he has not yet studied the evidence brought against him but suggested that it is manufactured.

He said he has no demand notes, no large amounts of cash, and that he arrived at the University City apartment wearing a black baseball hat, not an A’s cap. He said he has none of the clothing, save for stone-washed Guess jeans, that the bandit supposedly wore.

Malley was denied bail Thursday by U.S. Magistrate Harry McCue, who said the young man--wanted on a parole violation in New York--is a demonstrated flight risk.

If convicted of the single charge of robbing San Diego Trust & Savings, Malley could draw 25 years in prison. The case was assigned to Judge Earl B. Gilliam and a hearing was set for Monday.

On Thursday, Malley agreed to talk to several reporters who had asked to interview him. Shunning the advice of his attorney, Malley met alone with individual reporters in a small room inside the jail. The only other person in the room was a prison official, who sat nearby.

During the interview, an articulate Malley chronicled a life of despair growing up in a suburb of Binghamton, N.Y., which began when his father, Robert Malley, walked out on his wife, David and his three sisters when David was 2.

At 12, Malley and his sisters were placed in a foster home by New York State’s Child Protective Services when his mother, Mary Malley, began drinking heavily and found that she could not always care for them. Before long, Malley said, he had fallen in with a group of teens who were eager to test the limits of the law.

Malley said he graduated from Chenango Valley High School and even finished a semester at Broome County Community College.

But Malley began writing bad checks--about 20 in all, for $2,000. He pleaded guilty to a felony and was sentenced to five years probation. Shortly thereafter, he and his friends visited a Chevrolet dealership and drove away with a test car they did not return. Malley spent 2 1/2 years in various state prisons before being released last January.

In prison, he finished a second semester in the Inmate Higher Education Program.

Still on parole and looking for a job, Malley came to San Diego by bus because he had friends here.

“I understood that by leaving Binghamton that I was violating parole,” he said. “It wasn’t the best thing to do but under the circumstances, I had no other choice. I had about 30 special conditions for release from prison and nobody would give me a job in New York.”

Malley found two roommates in Ocean Beach and moved in. In various interviews, the roommates--Kyle Thomas and Steve O’Connor--said Malley frequently dyed his hair different colors and brought home clothing, cars, jewelry and furniture before they kicked him out.

Malley said he moved out after six weeks because one of his roommates was using drugs heavily. He only decided to speak to reporters, Malley said, because his roommates have accused him in various media accounts of being homosexual and bringing home money and expensive items.

“Whatever’s going to happen is going to happen,” he said. “But I’m tired of the things people are saying. I feel that people are getting a picture painted of me that I’m already guilty, that I look like this person (who did the robberies). It’s not true.”

Fast-talking and confident, Malley refused to say what he did for money while he lived in Ocean Beach and then moved into his University City apartment in February with a 28-year-old woman and her 9-year-old daughter.

Malley said he is not a drug user, although he said he frequented the “La Jolla scene and met a lot of people. A lot of them I didn’t like. It was a weird scene. There were people I knew who were casual drug users and drug dealers.”

Responsive to every question posed to him by The Times, Malley refused to comment when asked if he sold or bought drugs to earn a living.

“There was an allegation that I was a drug dealer and stuff like that,” he said. “I’m not saying yes or no. I have no comment. But (I didn’t make money) by robbing banks.”

Dressed in a white jumpsuit with blue slippers--standard issue prison clothing--Malley was calm and friendly, smiling and laughing while speaking in a rapid-fire New York accent.

“It doesn’t frighten me (in jail) any more like it’s supposed to,” he said. “They tell you it’s really bad but once you get (to jail), the reality is everyone just wants to do their time and go home. They have their families and friends and goals and things they want to do.”

To buttress his claims of innocence, Malley said he even filed a hit-and-run accident report to San Diego police during the day of one of the robberies.

“Why would I go to the police station? When I went there, why didn’t they say, ‘You look like the suspect?’ ” he asked. “And if I’m such a suspect, why am I only charged with one bank robbery? There are 28 more out there I’m not charged with.”

Times staff writer Alan Abrahamson contributed to this report.