Getaway Driver Sentenced In 2018 NJ Bank Robbery

CARNEYS POINT, NJ - A Philadelphia man who admitted to serving as the getaway driver for bank robbers in 2018 has been sentenced to over six years in state prison, authorities said.

Kenneth S. Thompson, 44, was sentenced to 77 months, or just under 6 and a half years in state prison, for serving as the driver for the men who brandished a firearm during a robbery at the Carneys Point Fulton Bank, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Jersey said in a statement.

He pleaded guilty last September before U.S. District Judge Joseph H. Rodriguez in Camden federal court to an indictment charging him with bank robbery.

Thompson admitted that on July 30, 2018, he drove from Philadelphia to Salem County with Antwaine Thomas and Kareem Moore as part of an agreement that Thomas and Moore would rob the Fulton Bank in Carneys Point. Thompson agreed to help them flee with the stolen proceeds by serving as the getaway driver, federal officials said.

Thomas and Moore walked into the bank and demanded cash from numerous bank employees at gunpoint, took the cash and fled. Thompson admitted to driving past the bank several times in an effort to pick up Thomas and Moore, but was hindered by responding officers who arrived at the bank within minutes of the robbery.

Thompson then fled in the getaway car without his co-defendants, federal officials said.

Thomas and Moore previously pleaded guilty to armed bank robbery and brandishing a firearm during a bank robbery, and on May 11, 2021, Judge Rodriguez sentenced them to 272 and 168 months in prison, respectively.