Brandon Ahart Hampton Convicted of Brandishing Firearm in ABC Store Heist

A South Carolina man pointed a loaded handgun at a clerk’s head inside an ABC Store in Spring Lake, North Carolina, threatened to kill her, then forced her at gunpoint to the back office where the safe sat. That act — cold, calculated, and laced with terror — is now cemented in federal court records as jurors found BRANDON AHART HAMPTON guilty of Brandishing a Firearm During and in Relation to a Crime of Violence.

The two-day trial, presided over by United States District Judge Terrance W. Boyle in Raleigh, laid bare the harrowing moments of December 5, 2014. Prosecutors detailed how HAMPTON, a resident of Florence, South Carolina, stormed into ABC Store #8 armed and aggressive. He didn’t just demand cash — he pointed the weapon directly at the employee’s head and warned her he’d pull the trigger if she didn’t move fast enough to open the safe.

Witness testimony and evidence presented by federal authorities showed HAMPTON herding the frightened clerk to the back of the store, where he escalated threats when the safe didn’t open instantly. The entire robbery unfolded under the barrel of a gun, a weapon HAMPTON used not just as a tool, but as a weapon of psychological torture.

Hampton had already admitted guilt in part. On February 6, 2018, he pled guilty to a charge of Hobbs Act Robbery, a federal offense covering acts of robbery affecting interstate commerce. But the firearm charge carried heavier penalties and required a jury trial, where the government sought to hold him fully accountable for the terror he inflicted.

The investigation was a multi-agency effort involving the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives (ATF), the Alcohol, Beverage Control Law Enforcement Division, the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office, Ft. Bragg Military Police, and the Spring Lake Police Department. Assistant United States Attorney Jane J. Jackson prosecuted the case for the government, underscoring the federal crackdown on violent gun crimes.

The case was prosecuted under Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN), a nationwide initiative reinvigorated by then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions to combat rising violent crime. HAMPTON now awaits sentencing in May 2018, where he faces mandatory minimums for using a firearm during a violent crime — time to answer for the fear he brought into a small-town liquor store four years ago.