SYRACUSE — Two defiant brothers accused of directing a year-long crime spree across upstate New York were sentenced yesterday to a combined 210 years in prison by a federal judge exasperated by their courtroom antics.

The brothers defended themselves in court.

“Because you attempted to make a mockery of our justice system, you have bought yourself what amounts to a life sentence in prison when you could have been out in a few years,” Senior U.S. District Judge Frederick Scullin told Gregory Thomas as he sentenced the 27-year-old man to a mandatory minimum of 155 years in prison without parole. “By your intentional and irrational arrogance, you have done this to yourself.”

Minutes before, Mr. Scullin sentenced Gerald Thomas, 26, to 55 years in prison without parole.

Authorities accused the pair of a crime spree in which they would steal money and drugs from other dealers at gunpoint. In at least a few instances, they pretended to be police. Gregory Thomas was found guilty of trying to hire someone for $10,000 to murder a victim of one of the drug robberies so the person couldn’t testify against him.

“It was a big mistake for them to represent themselves,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Edward Broton said. “Every decision they made worked to their detriment.”

At the time of their crimes in 2002-2003, Gregory Thomas was a student at LeMoyne College, a Jesuit school in Syracuse; Gerald Jr. was attending College of St. Rose, a Catholic school in Albany.

From the start, the brothers contested the jurisdiction of the court and said they did not recognize its authority. They claimed the court had misidentified them and demanded that they be identified as Gregory Jason, Family of Thomas and Gerald Norman, Family of Thomas. They refused to accept all the legal documents filed in the case because they were addressed to them with the surname Thomas.

In December Mr. Scullin ordered each man to undergo a psychiatric evaluation, which found them both competent to be sentenced.