Sam Millar

Sam Millar (born 1955) is a crime writer and playwright from Belfast, Northern Ireland. A former volunteer in the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA), he was imprisoned at HM Prison Maze during the late 1970s and 1980s, where he took part in the blanket protest. After his release, he emigrated to the United States, where in January 1993 he carried out an armed robbery at a Brink's security depot in Rochester, New York, stealing $7.4 million in what federal authorities described as one of the largest armoured car robberies in American history. He was convicted in 1994 of possessing proceeds of the robbery and served a prison sentence, part of which was completed in Northern Ireland under a prisoner transfer arrangement. He returned to Belfast following his release in 1997 and subsequently pursued a career as a writer, publishing a memoir of his experiences, On The Brinks, in 2003, as well as a series of crime novels.

Biography Provisional IRA As a youth, Millar attended St Patrick's College, Belfast on Antrim Road, in Belfast, where classmates included Joe Doherty, Maxie Maxwell, Hugh Connolly, and Tommy Denver. Millar joined the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) around the age of 15 after first seeing the events of Bloody Sunday and then, a few days after Bloody Sunday, learning a friend of his had been killed by the security forces, though it is not known whether this killing was committed by the Royal Ulster Constabulary, British Army or Military Reaction Force

As a volunteer in the IRA, he was involved in the blanket protests of the mid-1970s, when special category status was removed for republican prisoners in Northern Ireland's jails and detention centres. According to a 2003 interview with The Irish Times, Millar was the first person to be sentenced under the non-jury Diplock courts, receiving three years for IRA membership, and was subsequently imprisoned again in 1976 after being caught with explosives in central Belfast.

He was one of the first prisoners to join the dirty protest, and among the last to abandon it. When the hunger strikes ended in 1981, he was one of six prisoners who refused to come off the protest. He remained on the blanket until September 1983, when an IRA leader persuaded him to stand down in order not to jeopardise the planned mass escape from the Maze.

United States and the Rochester robbery After being released from the Maze Prison, Millar relocated to the United States. He subsequently found work as a croupier in illegal casinos in New York City, rising through the ranks of the operation over a number of years.

The robbery took approximately seven minutes in total. Millar later stated that he and Marco discarded between $3 million and $4 million at the scene after the weight of the cash caused the getaway van's engine to overheat. O'Connor was taken briefly as a hostage before being released en route back to New York City.

In the months following the robbery, neighbours in the Jackson Heights area of Queens described Millar as a quiet family man who drove an old minivan. During this period he spent freely, taking family holidays, opening a comic book shop called KAC Comics and Collectibles, and purchasing rare editions and a new Ford Explorer. Investigators later matched a tyre track found at the Brink's depot to Millar's minivan. The main charges against both Millar and Moloney had been thrown out on a jurisdictional technicality: because the arrests were made in New York City, the defendants were constitutionally entitled to have the case heard there rather than in Rochester. The Redemption Factory The Darkness of Bones Bloodstorm : A Karl Kane Book The Dark Place : A Karl Kane Book The Dead of Winter : A Karl Kane Book Small Town Killing Brothers in Arms (stage play) The Bespoke Hitman