Would-be Butner escapee gets 30 months added to sentence
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Sep. 23—BUTNER — An attempt to escape from the Butner federal prison is costing convicted bank robber Charles Asher an extra 30 months of freedom.
U.S. District Court Judge Terrence Boyle handed down the sentence on Thursday, specifying that he was adding it to the prison term Asher's already serving in connection with an August 2011 hold-up in West Virginia.
Boyle's decision came a bit more than three months after Asher pleaded guilty to a single count of attempted escape from the custody of the attorney general. Prosecutors dismissed a second count, but there was otherwise no written plea agreement, court records show.
Asher, now 62, tried to break out of the Butner compound the evening of Sept. 14, 2020, but was found hiding the bushes near an exit from the facility.
Prosecutors said he had with him "multiple unauthorized items that could be used to effectuate an escape," including "a homemade rope approximately 14 feet in length, gray gloves, a blue mattress cover, and a homemade cardboard replica handgun wrapped with black electrical tape."
A second man, Nicholas Shuck, also pleaded guilty in the case to a charge of making, obtaining or possessing a prohibited item. He received a year's probation for the offense.
Prosecutors dismissed charges that accused Shuck — who's also a convicted bank robber — of instigating the escape attempt, of making, possessing or obtaining items to facilitate an escape, and of concealing his knowledge of an escape attempt.
A trade publication, American Banker, reported in 2012 that Asher had been sentenced to about 12 1/2 years in connection with the August 2011 hold-up of a credit union in Barboursville, West Virginia.
Federal Bureau of Prisons records show that Asher is still being held at the Butner prison and had been due to get out at the end of 2024.
Shuck is being held at the Hazelton federal prison in West Virginia and is due to get out in June 2024, bureau records indicate.
Contact Ray Gronberg at rgronberg@hendersondispatch.com or by phone at 252-436-2850.
Contact Ray Gronberg at rgronberg@hendersondispatch.com or by phone at 252-436-2850.
