SC man rejects 20-year plea in Rock Hill kidnapping. He gets life in prison.
Almost exactly a year ago, 21-year-old Winthrop University student Geo Fields was working the late shift alone at Pelican’s SnoBalls on Anderson Road in Rock Hill when a man came in and hung around.
She felt uncomfortable and texted her bosses, who then watched surveillance cameras live as the man named Benjamin Louis Bennett passed a note claiming he had a gun, prosecutor Leslie Robinson said.
Supervisors called 911 but the police were not there yet on March 31, 2025.
Bennett came around the counter and “physically grabbed” Fields, went through her pockets and took her cellphone, Robinson said. He took the money drawer and then “forcibly dragged” Fields to a bathroom in the back where he blocked her in before he fled, prosecutors said.
The whole thing was on video.
Bennett, who has two armed robbery convictions on his record from Richland County, near Columbia, plus other convictions in his lifetime, was caught and arrested by Rock Hill police Detective Chris Price. Months later, Bennett rejected a guilty plea offer under which he would get 20 years in prison.
So he went to trial on Monday at York County’s Moss Justice Center courthouse. With his prior record, a kidnapping conviction — considered a violent crime in South Carolina — meant life for a conviction. The jury was not told of his previous crimes when deciding guilt.
Tuesday he got life. Without parole.
It took the jury just 34 minutes.
Jury: Guilty of both kidnapping and robbery
After the two-day trial where Fields testified and the jury saw the surveillance video of what Bennett did to Fields, the jury found him guilty of both kidnapping and strong arm robbery.
Fields sat in the front row with family and others who are close to her as the clerk read the two guilty verdicts.
Visiting Judge Deadra Jefferson then asked Bennett if he had anything to say before she sentenced him to the life sentence required by law.
“No ma’am,” Bennett said.
A bailiff then led him into a holding cell.
Bennett was represented at trial by 16th Circuit public defenders Devon Nielson and William Barbieri. Nielson said after the trial that state law for kidnapping is too broad. The South Carolina kidnap law reads: “A person who unlawfully seizes, confines, inveigles, decoys, kidnaps, abducts, or carries away any other person by any means” is guilty of kidnapping.
“Benjamin ran into a law that is overly broad and makes a serious offense like kidnapping way too easy to charge,” Nielson said. “I feel for him and his family that he will spend the rest of his life in prison.”
Prosecutor: Very serious offenses
After court, Fields, now 22 years old, did not want to talk about what happened to her. But she wanted to stand with Robinson, the prosecutor, as Robinson detailed the terrible night to The Herald so the public would know Bennett was found guilty. Robinson said she and prosecutor Heather Burdette sought life without parole because of the “very serious offenses” that Bennett committed.
Fields and her family had one last meeting with prosecutors, then readied to leave the courthouse.
Bennett, convicted, did not leave the building.
This story was originally published March 25, 2026 at 5:00 AM with the headline "SC man rejects 20-year plea in Rock Hill kidnapping. He gets life in prison.."
