Woman sentenced to prison for setting up Athens armed robbery

Samantha Faye Harris

By Joe Johnson

A woman has been sentenced in connection with an armed robbery two years ago in which she set up the victim.

Samantha Faye Harris on April 3 pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of robbery and was sentenced to two years in prison and eight years on probation.

Harris had been indicted last year along with two codefendants but she was not located and arrested until January.

Codefendants Donovan Hamm and Anthony Barnett were already serving prison sentences after having been convicted a few months earlier.

Authorities say that in December 2023 the trio conspired to rob Tommy Lee Smith at a home on Rocksprings Court.

After Harris invited Smith to the apartment he was robbed at gunpoint by Hamm and Barnett, who was Harris’s boyfriend at the time.

The men were both arrested later in the day of the armed robbery, and in March 2024 they along with Harris were indicted.

In negotiated agreements with the district attorney’s office, Hamm and Barnett pleaded guilty to armed robbery and were each sentenced to five years in prison and 10 years on probation.