Forest Acres bank robbery victims recount trauma at robber’s sentencing three years later
Victims of a 2019 bank robbery in Forest Acres told a court Monday about the trauma endured three years ago while being held at gunpoint.
Six employees of the South Carolina Federal Credit Union on Forest Drive were threatened into giving two robbers $10,000 in February 2019, before police opened fire on the getaway car as it attempted to flee the parking lot.
On Monday, Samuel Neathery pleaded guilty to armed robbery and six counts of kidnapping, one for each credit union employee he and a co-defendant encountered inside the building during a roughly eight-minute robbery.
“These folks will never forget,” prosecutor Dan Goldberg said in a statement on behalf of the credit union employees. “These folks never forget being lined up with a gun to their temple or the back of their head as they were being robbed. They will never forget the fear and uncertainty of whether they or their coworkers were going to live or die.”
The credit union asked that in making her sentencing decision, Judge Jean Toal place “weight on the six people whose lives have been forever changed by the acts of the perpetrator.”
Neathery was sentenced to 29 years, with credit for the three years he has spent in Richland County’s Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center since his arrest.
Neathery fled out the back of the Forest Drive credit union as his accomplice attempted to evade police in the parking lot, crashing her car after she was shot in the arm. Daisy Feliberty still faces charges in the case, court records show.
Investigators later tracked Neathery to a motel in his native Florida, where he was taken into custody more than two weeks after the robbery.
Several employees needed counseling and time off in the aftermath of the robbery. Some asked to be transferred to other locations because they did not want to return to the same location where they had been threatened, Goldberg said, while others quit their jobs and changed careers entirely after the hold-up.
“Sadly this has been their reality,” Goldberg said in his statement. “The loss that must be focused on is the loss of their peace of mind.”
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