3 Clewiston men get decades in prison for deadly robbery attempt

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Johan Holder, Sylvanis Brice and Uriah Waggerby. Credit: Hendry County Sheriff’s Office

Three Clewiston men received prison sentences of up to 40 years Wednesday for a deadly robbery attempt on the Big Cypress Indian Reservation in 2016.

Johan Holder, 26, and Sylvanis Brice, 31, were sentenced to 40 years in federal prison, and Uriah Waggerby, 25, was sentenced to 18 years in federal prison, for their roles in an attempted robbery that resulted in the death of a man on the Big Cypress Indian Reservation, one of the reservations of the Seminole Tribe of Florida. On July 20, following an eight-day trial, a jury found Holder and Brice guilty of conspiracy and robbery. The jury found Waggerby guilty of conspiracy.

According to testimony and evidence presented at trial, men wearing hoodies, masks and gloves, and brandishing firearms attempted to rob a home on the Big Cypress Reservation shortly before midnight on Nov. 1, 2016. During the attempt, one of the masked men fired a gunshot that struck and killed a young man who had been visiting the targeted home. Immediately after the shooting, the masked men ran away. No one at the scene was able to identify them and efforts to identify the men through fingerprints and DNA were unsuccessful.

Waggerby later admitted to his involvement in the robbery, telling investigators that he had met with men in the Harlem area of Clewiston prior to the attempted robbery and directed them to rob a particular house on the reservation because a resident there was a marijuana dealer. After a law enforcement investigation, Brice and Holder were identified as the men who had committed the attempted armed robbery on the reservation.

This case was investigated by the FBI and the Seminole Police Department.

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