SAVANNAH MAN SENTENCED FOR FLORENCE BANK ROBBERY

Columbia, South Carolina ---- Acting United States Attorney KEVEN F. MCDONALD stated that KEITH ENMON PENDERGRAPH, age 31, of Savannah, Georgia, was sentenced yesterday (March 26, 2008) by United States District Judge Terry L. Wooten to 8 years imprisonment for bank robbery.

Evidence presented at his guilty plea hearing established that on October 24, 2003, Pendergraph and another man, Corey Christie, entered the First Reliance Bank located at 2170 West Palmetto Street in Florence. Christie told the teller, “This is a robbery. I have a gun. I’ll shoot you and everyone else in this bank. Give me all your 10's, 20's, 50's, and 100's out of your top drawer.” The men escaped on foot just prior to police arriving on the scene.

On November 7, 2003, Christie was arrested in Chattanooga, Tennessee on federal bank robbery charges. The investigation determined that he had committed fifteen additional bank robberies in South Carolina, Georgia, Florida and Tennessee and implicated Pendergraph as the getaway driver in the Florence robbery. Christie was prosecuted by federal authorities in Tennessee.

The case was investigated by the Florence Police Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Assistant United States Attorney Rose Mary Parham of the Florence office prosecuted the case as part of Project CeaseFire, an initiative of the Department of Justice that seeks to aggressively prosecute gun and violent crime.