Imagine being convicted of a crime you didn’t commit, and then serving nearly two decades in a prison cell. It happened to Lamont Armstrong right here in North Carolina.
As part of an agreement with prosecutors, Blackwell agreed to testify against Armstrong and plead guilty himself to a lesser offense.
To this day, Armstrong marvels at the gall of Blackwell to manufacture a case and implicate himself in the process.
“He calls in and puts himself at the crime scene,” Armstrong said recently, shaking his head. “Who does that?”
Prosecutors presented Armstrong two plea deals before trial. But he rejected their offers of sentences of 20 or 15 years in exchange for a guilty plea.
Armstrong thought the system would work and he would be found not guilty of the accusations against him.
So now that he’s free, he’s rebuilding his life.
He is in touch with his family – his daughter, who was not yet 7 when he went to prison, and his son, who was playing college football at the time.
Armstrong plays basketball on Tuesdays at a Chapel Hill park if he’s not slowed by a back injury. He is an avid newspaper reader and a regular speaker about the imperfections of the justice system.
Since his release, he has gone back behind bars several times to offer advice to those still on the inside struggling to beat addiction and substance abuse.
