He Never Went Inside the Bank: Accomplice Liability and the Real Cost of Going to Trial

By LegalVault Pro Team · 2026-09-01

On September 1, 2026, the Justice Department announced that a federal judge in Memphis had sentenced Courtney Trenell, 34, to fifteen years in prison for aiding and abetting two bank robberies and for joining a conspiracy to rob six banks.

According to evidence presented at trial, Trenell joined a conspiracy between April and December 2023 to rob banks across Memphis. On October 20, 2023, he drove a getaway car that helped co-defendants carry out and escape simultaneous robberies of a Bank of Bartlett branch and a First Horizon Bank branch located across the street from one another. Prosecutors described the simultaneous timing as intended to confuse and evade law enforcement.

Eight men were indicted in the case. Trenell and three co-defendants were convicted at jury trials. The others pleaded guilty.

Unlike most cases we examine here, this one is not an allegation. Trenell was convicted by a jury and sentenced. That makes it useful for a different purpose: it shows what two frequently misunderstood doctrines look like when they are applied to an actual person.

"I Was Just the Driver" Is Not a Defense

The single most common misconception in criminal practice — the one clients arrive with already fully formed — is that culpability tracks physical proximity to the crime. The person who held the gun did the robbery. The person outside in the car did something lesser.

Federal law does not work that way, and has not for a very long time. Under 18 U.S.C. § 2, whoever aids, abets, counsels, commands, induces, or procures the commission of an offense is punishable as a principal. Not as an accessory. Not on a reduced scale. As the person who did it.

The elements are straightforward: the underlying crime occurred, the defendant took an affirmative act in furtherance of it, and the defendant did so with the intent to facilitate its commission. Driving a getaway car satisfies all three without difficulty. The Supreme Court's decision in *Rosemond v. United States* (2014) refined the intent requirement — requiring advance knowledge of the relevant circumstances — but did nothing to soften the core rule that a facilitator is liable as a principal.

Conspiracy compounds this. A conspiracy conviction requires an agreement and, under the general federal conspiracy statute, an overt act by any member. The agreement itself is the offense. And under the *Pinkerton* doctrine, a conspirator can be held liable for the reasonably foreseeable substantive crimes committed by co-conspirators in furtherance of the conspiracy — including crimes he was not present for.

Combine those and the practical picture is stark. A person who drove on one day, in a conspiracy that encompassed six banks, is exposed to far more than the two robberies he personally facilitated. The announced sentence of fifteen years for a man who, on the government's own account, never entered a bank is not an anomaly. It is the doctrine working exactly as designed.

The Other Lesson: Four Pleaded, Four Went to Trial

The second instructive fact is structural. Of eight defendants, four resolved by plea and four were convicted at trial.

This split is the ordinary shape of a multi-defendant federal case, and it produces an outcome pattern that every practitioner should be able to explain to a client honestly.

Under the federal sentencing guidelines, a defendant who accepts responsibility is eligible for a two-level reduction, with a third level available on the government's motion in higher-offense-level cases. A defendant who provides substantial assistance may receive a government motion under § 5K1.1, which can move a sentence dramatically — and in cases carrying mandatory minimums, is often the only mechanism that can go below them.

None of that is available to a defendant convicted at trial. He does not get acceptance of responsibility. He is sentenced on the full extent of proven conduct, including relevant conduct the jury never specifically found. And the cooperating co-defendants who testified against him have, by then, positioned themselves for the most favorable treatment available in the case.

The uncomfortable term for the gap between the plea outcome and the trial outcome is the trial penalty. It is not a formal doctrine and no judge would describe it that way; it is the aggregate effect of guideline mechanics that reward acceptance and cooperation. It is also real, it is large, and it is measurable across the federal system.

This creates the central ethical duty in a multi-defendant case: a defendant has an absolute constitutional right to a jury trial, and counsel must advise clearly about what exercising it is likely to cost. Both halves of that sentence are obligatory. Advising a client into a plea he does not want is a failure. Letting him go to trial without understanding the sentencing differential is also a failure.

The Timing Problem Nobody Warns You About

There is a race dynamic in multi-defendant cases that clients rarely grasp until it is too late.

Cooperation is worth the most to the government when it is early and when it is new. The first defendant to cooperate provides information the government does not have. The fifth provides corroboration. The value — and therefore the § 5K1.1 motion — declines accordingly.

That means the window in which a client holds maximum leverage may open and close before he has finished processing that he has been charged. Counsel who wait for discovery to be complete before evaluating cooperation may be advising in a market that has already cleared.

This is not an argument that everyone should cooperate. It is an argument that the analysis must happen early, deliberately, and with a full record of what the client actually knows.

What to Do About It

Concrete practices for firms handling co-defendant matters:

That last point is worth dwelling on. Firms that handle these cases well are not the ones with the best courtroom instincts; they are the ones who can reconstruct, years later, exactly what advice was given and what the client knew when he gave his answer. Keeping engagement records, guideline worksheets, advice memoranda, and discovery in one system with an intact version history is what makes that possible — the ordinary discipline LegalVault Pro is built around.

The Summary a Client Will Understand

Federal law does not grade culpability by how close you stood to the money. It grades it by whether you helped and whether you agreed. A man who drove a car for a few minutes on one October afternoon in 2023 was sentenced, nearly three years later, to fifteen years in federal prison.

Four of his co-defendants made a different decision earlier in the process. That is the whole lesson, and it is worth delivering to clients plainly, at the beginning, while the choice is still available.

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*This article discusses a concluded federal prosecution in which the defendant was convicted at trial and sentenced. Descriptions of federal law and sentencing practice are general and are not legal advice; consult a qualified attorney about any specific situation.*

*Sources: U.S. Department of Justice, "Getaway Driver in Multiple Memphis Bank Robberies Sentenced to 15 Years in Prison after Trial," September 1, 2026; Action News 5, September 2, 2026; Washington Times, September 2, 2026. Details as of September 4, 2026.*

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