Michael Neppach

The lawyer for Michael Ryan Neppach, who pleaded guilty to the August 2019 robbery of a Cranberry Township PNC Bank, is asking for a more lenient sentence than one recommended by prosecutors.

Prosecutors in the case filed a memorandum in March, stating the severity of Neppach’s offense and his criminal history warrant a sentence between 63 and 78 months in prison.

But in a memorandum filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court for the District of Western Pennsylvania, Stanley Greenfield, Neppach’s attorney, asked the court to use its discretion in sentencing to impose a sentence below the 63 to 78 month guideline or, at the very least, to stay on the lower half of the recommendation.

Greenfield argues that Neppach’s personal past, his physical and mental health and his acceptance of responsibility and cooperation with authorities all point toward him deserving a lighter-than-suggested sentence. According to his filing, Neppach has a “host” of physical and psychological conditions that would be, at best, “problematically” treated in confinement.

Additionally, Greenfield said Neppach’s cooperation with authorities should preclude him from serving a longer term of confinement — although that already is accounted for in the government’s sentencing memorandum — as well as a need for mental health treatment.

Neppach pleaded guilty in December to walking into the PNC Bank on Route 19 in Cranberry Township Aug. 28, 2019, and handing the teller a note that read, “I have a gun, no bait, no dye.” In return, he received $1,400 from the teller, but was arrested two days later.

Neppach is expected to be sentenced Wednesday.