Hold-up draws jail sentence of 50 years

Attempted murder at ATM charged

A Washington, D.C., man was sentenced Monday in a St. Mary’s courtroom to 50 years in prison, according to a prosecutor, on guilty pleas to attempted second-degree murder and a handgun offense from a holdup last fall outside a bank.

Charles Nathaniel Thomas Jr., 40, was one of two men arrested after the confrontation last November outside the Cedar Point Federal Credit Union branch in Charlotte Hall, where

court papers state that two masked culprits demanded money at gunpoint from a man using an ATM.

In June, a judge sentenced David Terry Luckett, 36, also of Washington, D.C., to 20 years in prison on his guilty plea to armed robbery.

St. Mary’s State’s Attorney Richard Fritz (R) obtained the attempted murder charge against Thomas, who was on Monday’s docket before Circuit Court Judge Karen H. Abrams.

“Thomas had the gun, ran after the [ATM customer] and shot at him,” Fritz later said outside the county courthouse. “The bullet went through the guy’s hair and hit the wall in front of him.”

St. Mary’s sheriff’s detectives filed court papers stating that “due to difficulties with the ATM, no currency was dispensed,” but the culprits went through the customer’s vehicle and took his cellphone and wallet. As the confrontation continued, the ATM customer “became frightened when the suspects gave him 10 seconds to get money from the ATM, and [he] fled on foot toward a convenience store,” sheriff’s Cpl. David Alexander wrote in the charging document, before the shot from a rifle was fired, narrowly missed the victim and struck the bank building.

The St. Mary’s investigator and a Charles County sheriff’s detective determined that the two culprits began using the ATM customer’s phone after the holdup, court papers state, and Luckett and Thomas were arrested following a raid at an apartment in Washington where the phone was being used.

Thomas and Luckett face trials later next month in Charles County, online court records state, on charges including armed carjacking, and an additional robbery offense, from last November in that county.

Fritz said Tuesday that Thomas was released from prison about six months before the incident in Charlotte Hall, and that at this week’s plea hearing, “he told the court, ‘I can’t make it on the street.’” Twitter: @JohnEntNews