SC woman admits elder scam, running home where elderly were soaked in urine
An Orangeburg woman and aspiring singer has pleaded guilty to a series of crimes targeting the elderly.
On June 5, Shaneima Arnise Montgomery, 41, pleaded guilty in the Orangeburg County Courthouse to impersonating an attorney and charging a woman with Huntington’s disease nearly $20,000 to draft her will. The plea came less than two weeks after Montgomery pleaded guilty to elder abuse for running an unlicensed residential care home out of the back of an Orangeburg barbershop.
In January 2024, Investigators found five vulnerable, elderly adults, one aged 99, living in rancid conditions, some covered in their own waste and sleeping in converted closets while under the care of Montgomery and her company, Carolina Southern Living, according to warrants charging her with five counts of neglect of a vulnerable adult.
At the time, Orangeburg Police Chief Charles Austin Sr. described the neglect as “atrocities.”
But the only jail time Montgomery will serve is a 90-day stretch following her guilty pleas for practicing law without a license and obtaining property by false pretenses when she swindled her victim out of $18,700 while claiming to prepare her will.
Circuit Court Judge Maite Murphy allowed Montgomery to serve her jail time on the weekends so she can continue caring for her daughter.
Murphy also sentenced Montgomery to a total of ten years of probation and suspended concurrent prison sentences of five years for each of those charges.
For running the unlicensed care home, Montgomery was sentenced to five years in prison suspended to two years of probation after she pled guilty to just one count of neglect.
Explaining her sentencing decision in the neglect case, Murphy said in Tuesday’s hearing that she accepted the testimony that Montgomery had simply gotten in over her head.
Murphy ordered that Montgomery have no contact with her victims, the elderly or work in a care home.
The sentences are to run concurrently, meaning Montgomery will need to serve 10 years of probation. If she successfully completes her jail time and probation, she will not spend any time in the custody of the South Carolina Department of Corrections.
She will also be required to make restitution, but the exact amount has yet to be determined, said her attorney, Mitchell Farley. The case was prosecuted by the state Attorney General’s Office.
When confronted about the stolen money, Montgomery said told them the money was gone and “you can’t get blood from a turnip,” said assistant attorney general Clarissa Guerrero.
These were “admittedly horrible” crimes said Farley. But Montgomery readily admitted to taking the money and would not do it again.
“She’s got the community support that would help her get through the probationary sentenced,” Farley said.
Montgomery, who once owned a web of 24 companies, including several registered to the barbershop where the five elderly victims were found, said that currently her only occupation is singing.
She performs under the stage name and character of “Sam Stacie,” the fantastical combination of “Sam,” a “a kind-hearted legal assistant who finds joy in helping others every day,” and “Stacie,” “the formidable alter ego of Sam” who unleashes the “dark side” and “fearlessly speaks her mind and stands as a superhero fighting for justice.”
Since being charged with the crimes Montgomery has released five music videos online under the Sam Stacie name, including the country and western “Boots Baby” and “Saturday Night,” where a private investigator pursues her throughout the video for “money laundering & possible murder.”
The sentence “fell short,” said Johnny Glenn Faircloth, a close friend of the 74-year-old victim who paid Montgomery thousands for legal work she never performed. Speaking with The State after delivering a victim impact statement in court, Faircloth called it “an absolute injustice.”
Elder abuse in Orangeburg
While Montgomery’s crimes were unconnected, both involved elderly and vulnerable victims.
In 2022, Montgomery was introduced to her victim in the will scheme, who was a resident of The Oaks, an assisted living community in Orangeburg. The victim, a widow who suffered from Huntington’s disease, needed help with her will.
At the time, one of Montgomery’s business ventures was a company called Blue Ink Sign. Registered as a limited liability company, Blue Ink Sign claimed to be a nonprofit corporation that assisted with preparing legal paperwork. Faircloth and his wife, Tonia, were close with the victim, and after her husband’s death and diagnosis with Huntington’s disease, helped her with her legal arrangements. Huntington’s is a incurable degenerative neurological condition that causes muscular and cognitive decline.
Faircloth remembered Montgomery as charismatic and charming. Representing herself as an attorney, she showed up at the nursing home with her father and sang The Temptations’ songs to the victim, who had a background in entertainment.
But Montgomery charged inconsistent and “astronomical amounts” for legal work that she did not perform, according to a warrant. She was paid thousands of dollars and made extravagant requests, like needing to fly to Ohio with a “team” to do an asset search. During one meeting in Montgomery’s office, Faircloth recalled that Montgomery showed him a stack of documents as proof of her work. Some had just been printed off from Google, Faircloth remembered. Then she slid him a bill for $20,000, Faircloth told The State.
“That’s when I knew we’d been had,” Faircloth said.
But Montgomery’s schemes didn’t stop there. Montgomery ran Blue Ink Sign out of 487 Broughton St., a former Motorola store on a business strip on the outskirts of Orangeburg. But by December 2023, five elderly adults were living in squalid conditions in the back of the store, according to warrants.
Montgomery had started a new company, Carolina Southern Living LLC.
With a barbershop running in the front of the building, some of these elderly individuals were living in converted closet spaces with the locks on the outside of their doors, according to warrants. They had no access to kitchen or bathing facilities inside the converted office building, which was not zoned for residential use. Several of the victims required 24 hour care, investigators noted.
Inside the rooms, investigators found used syringes and bottles of urine. One elderly woman was found in a soiled diaper with feces on her bed sheets.
“No human being should be subjected to conditions such as those,” said Austin, the Orangeburg police chief.