Almost exactly a year ago, The Bank in Kinston was robbed. On Thursday, Richard Jay McCall, 23, of Kinston, was convicted of armed robbery by a federal jury in Montgomery.

"Evidence at trial established that McCall, driving his father's red pick-up and wearing a zippered camouflage jumpsuit, went to The Bank with a shotgun and robbed the two tellers, Audrey Hataway and Myra Mullins, of approximately $30,000," stated the official release from Leura Garrett Canary, U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Alabama. "McCall then fled to Rocky Mount, N.C. in a blue truck purchased with proceeds of the robbery."

The robbery took place around 10:57 a.m. Dec. 17, 2002.

After the robbery, the red pick-up truck was discovered parked next to a barn on Armstrong Road in Samson.

After McCall's flight, local police were notified that McCall may have been located in North Carolina.

"While in Rocky Mount, the defendant attempted to elude arrest by officers of the Rocky Mount Police Department by using his truck as a deadly weapon, and ramming and running over police vehicles," said Canary. "Once arrested, the remaining money from the bank robbery was located in the back of the defendant's truck."

McCall had driven over the front of an occupied vehicle in the four-wheel drive truck he had purchased. In addition to the armed robbery charge, McCall also faced

two counts of attempting to murder a police officer in North Carolina. According to Retta Goss, press officer for Canary, McCall pled guilty on that assault and received probation.

Sentencing for the armed robbery conviction is expected to take place in March of 2004, before U.S. District Court Judge Mark Fuller. The maximum penalty McCall faces is 32 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Special Agent Charles Bravata; the Kinston Police Department, the Samson Police Department, the Coffee County Sheriff's Department, the Rocky Mount, N.C. Police Department; and was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Susan R. Redmond and Stephen Feaga.