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A pentecostal minister pleaded guilty on Thursday in federal court to robbing banks from Maine to Massachusetts of more than $10,000, law enforcement officials said.

Jerry Hayes, 52, of Hartford, Maine, was arrested in May after he gave a Massachusetts bank teller a note saying he was armed and demanded that all large bills be placed into a bag.

The note added: "Do not put any device into bag: paint, track, etc. If I sense an alarm is set: Someone will be hostage." The teller gave the minister $2,550 in cash and a dye pack that exploded as he fled the robbery. Police later arrested him and found a loaded .38 caliber handgun on the floor of his car.

A subsequent investigation showed he had robbed four other banks in Maine, Massachusetts and New Hampshire, and that he was laundering the proceeds through an account in the name of the church where he was pastor, the Shema First Apostolic Assembly in Canton, Maine, federal prosecutors said.

Hayes faces up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine on each of the five bank robberies, to which he pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Reginald C. Lindsay. He is due to be sentenced in January.

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"I think men who have a pierced ear are better prepared for marriage. . . . . .
They've experienced pain and bought jewelry."