A former Capitol Hill press secretary who has twice been convicted in bank robbery cases was in handcuffs again this week, charged with the same type of crime.

Montgomery County police said they arrested Thomas C. Springer, 56, of Garrett Park on Tuesday morning after a witness who saw him rob a bank in Kensington [the next town over from Garrett Park] called 911 while following the getaway car, a blue Geo Metro.

Police said Springer is responsible for at least seven other bank robberies committed in the county since November 2004. He was being held without bond at a Montgomery County jail yesterday.

[So far typical crime story, right? If these crimes had taken place in Southeast DC, that’d be the end of it. But this is upscale Garrett Park, so we must search, search, search for reasons…]

"He's a sick boy [note Springer's age], and he has a serious manic depressive illness," his aunt, Helen Ossofsky, said yesterday. "He needs hospitalization badly."

Ossofsky, 83, said robbing banks seems to be the way her nephew deals with his childhood demons. "I think he grew up hating his father," who was a banker, said Ossofsky, a child psychiatrist.

[How can we even think of prosecuting this man now that we know this?]

…Ossofsky said Springer has declined to take lithium for his mental illness. "He said it ruined his creativity."