News

Neill transferred from federal to state prison

Sam Neill in Henderson County Superior Court in April 2013.

By Bill Moss, Published: January 27, 2016

Sam Neill, the disbarred Hendersonville attorney sentenced to six to eight years in prison for embezzling from estates he was entrusted to safeguard and distribute, was released from federal prison last week and transferred to a state prison in Salisbury.

Neill, 66, will undergo an evaluation at Piedmont Correctional Institute before being assigned to a state prison unit, a prison official said. “He came in as medium security but that could change as he goes through processing,” the Piedmont Correctional records official said.
After pleading guilty to income tax evasion and embezzling $2.4 million from five estates, Neill was sentenced to six to eight years in prison with the terms to run concurrently. He reported to a federal prison in Jesup, Ga., in June 2013 and was released on Jan. 21 to the N.C. Department of Correction after serving 2½ years. State corrections officials have not set a release date but court officials said in 2013 Neill was likely to serve no more than six years total.
Neill was sentenced in federal court in Asheville and in Henderson County Superior Court and ordered to pay $2.78 million. An insurance bond covered a $55,000 theft from one of the estates. During Neill’s sentencing in state court in Hendersonville, McCray Benson, president of the Henderson County Community Foundation, testified that had the attorney not stripped the Barry Clemo estate of its value, $213,000 would have been distributed up until 2013 and another $1.2 million would have remained, churning out $50,000 a year for the causes he wanted to help.
Investigations by the Hendersonville Lightning have shown that Neill had made partial restitution to two of the estates and none to two others.