BRANDON MARTIN A 24-year-old Gaffney man admitted responsibility for an attempted bank holdup and the armed robbery of a local truck stop, labeling both of them the result of a stupid idea.

Brandon Lee Martin, who has been held in custody since last August, was charged with the Aug. 26 attempted holdup of First Piedmont Federal on West Floyd Baker Boulevard and the subsequent robbery of Norma’s Truck Stop a short time later.

Martin, who previously fired his public defender and was denied on Monday a request to have a new attorney appointed, represented himself in Cherokee County General Sessions Court and pleaded guilty Monday afternoon.

Martin and some of his victims returned to court Tuesday morning where Martin was sentenced.

“Addiction is a very bad thing,” he told the court Tuesday. “I’m not a bad guy. I’m sorry for what I did to them.”

While Martin offered his apologies in open court, he also presented Circuit Court Judge Roger Couch with a lengthy handwritten letter, detailing a series of bad luck and bad circumstances that had befallen him since he was a child.

“On Aug. 26, 2009, after being high on crack for two days, I came up with the stupidest idea of robbing a bank and curing all my financial troubles and my family’s,” he wrote in the letter.

“I know what I did was very stupid and dangerous and I can’t imagine how I had scared everyone just because I had a fake gun and they didn’t know that.”

Martin pleaded guilty to the charges of entering a bank with intent to steal for the incident at First Piedmont Federal and armed robbery for the incident at Norma’s Truck Stop. Each of those charges carried the possibility of up to 30 years in prison.

Judge Couch, at the conclusion of the hearing Tuesday, gave Martin concurrent sentences of 15 years imprisonment on each charge and directed he undergo treatment for addiction.

According to previously released police reports and interviews with investigators, Martin began the minicrime spree Aug. 26, 2009, by taking a car without permission and police already were on the lookout for him when, at about 9:10 a.m. that day, a man wearing a ski mask and camouflage jacket entered First Piedmont Federal on West Floyd Baker Boulevard and demanded money.

Bank employees reportedly saw him coming before he entered the main lobby, however, and ducked behind their counters. Bank executive Ken Potter then approached Martin, held a gun of his own toward the robber, and asked him to leave, according to Assistant Solicitor Michael Morin, who prosecuted the case.

At 9:43 a.m., a man wearing the same clothing entered Norma’s Truck Stop, approached the front counter and demanded money from the cashier, Tammy Gamble. Gamble said that the robber had a gun in the front of his pants. “He never pointed it at me, but he let me know he had one,” she said at the time.

Martin didn’t get any money from the bank, but he did make off with $385 from Norma’s, Morin said in court.

Morin noted that Martin subsequently turned himself in.

The gun was fake, but that had no bearing on the armed robbery charge.

Gaffney Police had said last August that video surveillance cameras had shown Martin circling First Piedmont Federal before the robbery, and also shoplifting the ski mask and camouflage coat from Wal-Mart.

Martin’s guilty pleas to the Aug. 26, 2009, charges violated his probation on a previous sentence for a property crime. Judge Couch revoked Martin’s probation, but allowed him to serve the remainder of that sentence concurrently with his new sentence.

Both Potter and Gamble appeared in court for Martin’s sentencing Tuesday. On the bank’s behalf, Potter relayed in court a belief that Martin is a dangerous individual, but he declined to offer any comments afterwards about the incident.

Gamble chose not to address the court but said afterwards she was happy with the sentence Judge Couch handed down.

“Maybe he’ll get the help he needs,” she said.

In his letter to the court, Martin noted: “I wish there was some way I could correct the wrong I’ve done, but there isn’t. I can only use this experience as a hard lesson learned and better myself as a person, as a family member and a member of society.”