{"id":356859,"date":"2026-06-11T22:06:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-11T22:06:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/356859\/"},"modified":"2026-06-11T22:06:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-11T22:06:10","slug":"judge-sentences-4-for-murder-of-marijuana-businessman-sam-simko-the-oakland-press","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/356859\/","title":{"rendered":"Judge sentences 4 for murder of marijuana businessman Sam Simko \u2013 The Oakland Press"},"content":{"rendered":"

As expected, the four Ohio men convicted of killing Sam Simko<\/a> of Commerce Township outside his marijuana grow business in Pontiac last year were sentenced to life in prison on Thursday.<\/p>\n

Scott Aloysius Brown, 41, William Gregory Creasy, 35, and Christopher Adam Matacia, 35, were found guilty in April of felony murder and armed robbery for their roles in the Jan. 13, 2025 homicide. A fourth co-defendant, Deonte Damonte Prophett, 34, was convicted of the same crimes as well as felony firearm and possession of a firearm by a prohibited person. Prophett was the gunman in the slaying.<\/p>\n

Simko, 66, was shot to death after being lured to his grow facility on University Drive for what he thought was a business meeting. The Oakland County Prosecutor\u2019s Office said surveillance video footage from the business showed Creasy arrived first, then a Ford Expedition parked across the street pulled into the business\u2019s parking lot. As Creasy and Simko walked out of the building, Brown and Prophett exited the vehicle and, after a struggle, Simko was shot twice in the head and died at the scene. Approximately 50 pounds of marijuana was stolen from the business, officials said.<\/p>\n

\"mugshot\"<\/p>\n

Oakland County Jail<\/p>\n

Scott Brown booking photo
\n\"mugshot\"<\/p>\n

Oakland County Jail<\/p>\n

William Creasy booking photo
\n\"mugshot\"<\/p>\n

Oakland County Jail<\/p>\n

Christopher Matacia booking photo
\n\"mugshot\"<\/p>\n

Oakland County Jail<\/p>\n

Deonte Prophett booking photo<\/p>\n

Along with the life sentences, Brown, Creasy and Prophett were sentenced to 25-50 years in prison for armed robbery, and Matacia was sentenced to 225 months-50 years for that crime. Prophett got additional time for the firearm-related offenses.<\/p>\n

Restitution of $4000.59 was ordered to be paid by Brown, Creasy and Prophett, and $3,968 by Matacia.<\/p>\n

The four were sentenced by Oakland County Circuit Judge Martha Anderson.<\/p>\n

\"industrialSam Simko was found fatally shot outside this Pontiac building where he housed a cannabis grow operation (file photo)<\/p>\n

\u2018Particularly vicious attack:\u2019 Farmington Hills homicide suspect arraigned<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As expected, the four Ohio men convicted of killing Sam Simko of Commerce Township outside his marijuana grow…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":356860,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[14512,134,145348,145347,143,25791,145,144,48097,145349,2897],"class_list":["post-356859","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-cannabis","tag-homicide","tag-judge-martha-anderson","tag-marijuana-businessman-murdered","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-county-circuit-court","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news","tag-pontiac-crime","tag-sam-simko","tag-sentencing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356859","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=356859"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356859\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/356860"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=356859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=356859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=356859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}