LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — A Montana man dubbed the AK-47 bandit and accused of holding up banks in several states over a five-year period has been sentenced in a Nebraska federal court to 35 years in prison.

Richard Gathercole, of Roundup, Montana, received the maximum sentence Wednesday after pleading guilty in March to bank robbery.

A Kansas Highway Patrol trooper tried to stop Gathercole on Interstate 70 eastbound five miles east of Goodland on the evening of June 19, 2017. The suspect was driving a Toyota Camry that was believed to be stolen. Gathercole fled from the trooper, exchanging gunfire with the trooper. The trooper was not hit, according to Trooper Tod Hileman of the KHP.

Gatherole carjacked a truck from a Kansas farmer at gunpoint and fled into Nebraska. He was apprehended by law enforcement at a gas station in Lexington, Nebraska.

The 41-year-old Gathercole admitted during his plea hearing to using an AK-47 while robbing a Nebraska City bank in 2014. Gathercole also pleaded guilty to the 2017 carjacking of the farmer in Kansas.

As part of his plea deal, Gathercole won’t be prosecuted by other jurisdictions for other violent crimes, including shooting at the Kansas state trooper in 2017 and bank robberies in California, Idaho, Iowa and Washington state from 2012 to 2017.

Some of the crimes had passed the five-year federal statute of limitations.

Cristina Janney of the Hays Post contributed to this story.