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Judge orders Neill to get a job to help pay restitution

Judge William Stetzer questions Sam Neill during a hearing on Monday, April 1.

By Bill Moss, Published: April 2, 2024

Sam Neill, the disgraced attorney who served six years in prison for stealing $2.8 million from five estates he represented, managed to avoid going back to jail but received another command he and his lawyer worked hard to avoid: He was ordered to go to work.

Although Neill, 74, testified in court Monday that high blood pressure, occasional tremors and bouts of vertigo would make it impossible for him to work a regular job, Superior Court Judge William Stetzer was not buying it.

“I was able to observe in the courtroom, both walking in and walking back to the counsel table, interacting with counsel, and more specifically when he testified on the stand I found the defendant to be articulate, intelligent and to have an absolute grasp of facts, so his mind is clearly in excellent shape,” he said. “He’s able to engage in negotiation with people in complex real estate matters, so it’s clear to this judge that his faculties are fully intact.”

Stetzer’s order resolved the lone outstanding criminal matter Neill faced — a judge’s ruling in February 2022 that he had violated the terms of his probation by failing to make substantial progress to repay four estates money he embezzled. (The theft from a fifth estate was covered by a bond.)

Neill argued two years ago and again during the 2½-hour hearing that he had done everything in his power to make the victims whole, not only by conveying land to them but by using his skills as a former real estate attorney to negotiate sales that would benefit the estates. A recent sale that yielded $325,000 for one of the Ruth Danis estate was an example.

“This $325,000 would not have happened had I not been spending my time trying to sell that property,” he said. “I knew it very well. I could have worked but it would have been in a very menial level and instead I spent my time trying to sell the property.”

When he called Neill to the stand, public defender Brooks Kamszik of Asheville asked the defendant about his health. He responded that the judge’s ruling in 2022 caused him to spiral into despair — particularly the part of the decision that gave him no credit for a more than $1 million payment he had made to one estate through a land sale.

“I did go through a period of depression after the last hearing when I wasn’t given initial credit for the $1,075,000,” he said. “And the fact that I had the appeals process that took almost two years — I felt like I had Damocles sword hanging over my head as far as actual incarceration.”

The N.C. Court of Appeals ruled last November in Neill’s favor after Superior Court Judge Bradley Letts found him in violation of his probation in February 2022, extended the probation by two years and ordered him back to jail for 90 days. The trial court was wrong to ignore the $1,075,000 restitution payment, the appellate court said, and further had “abused its discretion” by finding that Neill “willfully and without legal excuse violated a condition of his probation.” The appeals court order sent the case back to Henderson County for a second hearing.

Judge finds health claims ‘unpersuasive’

Neill testified that he lives on a Social Security check of $3,184 a month, which yields around $2,500 after IRS garnishment for a $490,000 tax lien.

What medical conditions, Kamszik asked, prohibited him from working?

“Well, the tremors more than anything else, and the blood pressure,” he said. “When I have vertigo I cannot get out of bed.”

Judge Stetzer repeatedly chipped away at the evidence.

“As to the advanced age of 74 years old, the defendant appears to be in good physical condition, and the evidence of his health conditions the court found unpersuasive,” he said. “If you printed out the MyChart (medical record) of any person seated in this courtroom today you would find similar or worst ailments in more than half of them.”

Ameshia Cooper-Chester, a special deputy attorney general, also called on the judge to order Neill to get a job so he could pay more than the $20 a month he has been paying the clerk’s office. He still owes the victims $1,368,378.

“This piddly $20 a month is just not indicative of a true effort to make these victims whole,” she said. “Some of these victims are doing very important work in this community and to not require more on Mr. Neill’s part is a slap in the face. … We all know people who are 74 years old, who get up every day, go about their day and work, volunteer, contribute.”

In his order, Stetzer credited Neill for restitution payments he had made.

“I think it’s appropriate to acknowledge the efforts of Mr. Neill in selling that property and others with deeds of trust and other methods,” he said. “I don’t think he received appropriate credit for that in the last hearing. However, the flip side of that would be that there’s also benefit to him in getting the most value he can out of those properties because it’s a debit against what he owes as restitution. I don’t think we should ignore the fact that it wasn’t for altruistic motives or his altruistic motives were mixed with him trying to reduce the amount of the restitution.”

Neill ‘stole the last hopes and intentions’ of his clients

McCray Benson, president of the Community Foundation of Henderson County, spoke toward the end of the hearing. The foundation and Four Seasons hospice were supposed to be beneficiaries of a $884,515 bequest from the Barry E. Clemo trust. (The two nonprofits did receive around $300,000 each from the sale of property Neill owned on South Grove Street.)

“Mr. Neill, by his own admission, after spending years cultivating an image of a community pillar, a guardian of charitable intentions, purposefully and willfully undermined and stole the last hopes and intentions of those he swore to serve,” Benson said. “Under this veneer of respectability, he executed a calculated scheme that diverted funds intended to serve charitable purposes and honor donors’ life works to line his own pockets. This was not a momentary lapse of judgment but a sustained campaign against the very fabric that creates community trust and the sanctity of our shared values as a society. … Granting Mr. Neill leniency in his request for fine reduction and probation clemency would send a disheartening message to our community. It would endorse the betrayal of public trust and deliberate undermining of charitable intentions, while further silencing those who cannot speak for themselves.”

In his ruling from the bench, Stetzer said justice demands that victims be made whole.

“The payment of restitution to the victims is of the highest concern to the court,” he said. “So in finding whether the defendant violated the terms and conditions of his probation the question is has he made a good-faith effort to obtain the necessary funds to repay restitution. The court finds that paying $20 a month is insufficient and not a good-faith effort to make restitution.”

The ruling extended Neill’s probation by 24 months, ordered him to “become and remain gainfully employed” and pay one-half of the income from his job toward restitution.