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Bank robber could see less than a year for escape Amy Joy Cook Monday Jan 2, 2017 at 12:01 AM Nick Morgan Mail Tribune @mtcrimebeat Federal prosecutors are recommending an eight-month sentence for a woman who spent just shy of four months on the lam after failing to return to the Jackson County Transition Center while serving a bank robbery sentence last year. U.S. attorneys are recommending Amy Joy Cook, who pleaded guilty to escape in September, serve a sentence at the low-end of a recommended 8 to 14 months, according to a document filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Medford. The maximum penalty for escape is five years in prison, the document says. Cook went missing March 16, while she was serving the tail end of a 3-year federal bank robbery sentence at the minimum-security transition center. She'd left on a furlough pass to go to treatment at OnTrack, the document says, and didn't return until her capture July 12 in Ashland, where police found her staying in a friend's backyard shed. A tip from a citizen led to her capture, the document says. Cook has remained in Jackson County Jail since her capture in July, jail records show. Factors leading to the recommended lenient sentence were that Cook escaped from a nonsecure facility, and that she's showed acceptance of responsibility, according to the document.  A sentencing hearing is set for Jan. 19, court records show. When she escaped, Cook had been serving a sentence for the June 5, 2013, robbery of the Bank of America branch at 790 Stevens St., in Medford. She fled the bank with $256 after slipping the teller a note, archives show.  She was transferred to the transition center after serving more than a year in a Dublin, California, federal prison. — Reach reporter Nick Morgan at 541-776-4471 or [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter at @MTCrimeBeat.