FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 2007

CONTACT: SUELLEN PIERCE
704.338.3120
FAX 704.227.0264

CHARLOTTE, N.C. – Gretchen C. F. Shappert, United States Attorney for the Western District of North Carolina, announced that Randal Smith, 47, of Wadesboro, NC, was sentenced Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Charlotte by the Honorable Frank D. Whitney to 155 months in federal prison in connection with the September 18, 2006 armed robbery of First Bank located at 7996 Highway 74 West in Polkton (Anson County) North Carolina.

Randal Smith was convicted at trial in March 2007 by a federal jury sitting in Charlotte of armed bank robbery and possession and use of a firearm during a crime of violence. Randal Smith was also sentenced to a three-year term of supervised release which will follow his term of imprisonment, and was ordered to pay restitution in the amount of $13,643.67. Smith has been in federal custody since his arrest on September 27, 2006.

According to testimony presented at the trial, on September 18, 2006, Randal Smith

walked into the First Bank in Polkton, North Carolina wearing a baseball cap and dark

sunglasses. He then brandished a firearm and demanded that the bank tellers give him cash from their teller drawers. He then ordered the tellers to the ground while he fled the bank on foot. Witnesses testified that after the robbery, Smith ran next door to a gas station where he took a car from a customer and fled the area.

The case was handled for the government by Assistant United States Attorney Dana

Washington. The case was investigated jointly by agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and officers of the Anson County Sheriff’s Office.

Terms of federal imprisonment are served without the possibility of parole.