NC pastor spent 8 years in prison for a robbery he didn’t commit. Now he’s suing.
A Pitt County pastor who served eight years in prison for a robbery he didn’t commit has filed a federal lawsuit against the small town of Winterville and two of its police officers, arguing they fabricated evidence to convict him and hid facts that would have cleared his name.
Darron Carmon was a 19-year-old pastor’s son in 1993, when police charged him with robbing the Fresh Way convenience store at gunpoint and taking $281.
But those officers, Donnie Greene and Emmanuel Armaos, arrested the young Black college student though he didn’t match the clerk’s description, the lawsuit says. After calling 911, cashier Robert Thompson said the robber stood 6 feet tall and wore his hair in an Afro; Carmon was 5-foot-6 and had short-cropped hair.
Also, the suit says, Greene and Armaos took finger and palm prints from the Fresh Way that did not match Carmon’s. But rather than turn the prints over to prosecutors, Carmon or his attorneys, they placed them in a Winterville evidence locker, where they remained for 28 years.
Carmon, who seeks unspecified compensatory and punitive damages, “suffered, and continues to suffer, severe and ongoing damages, specifically physical pain and injuries, serious psychological and emotional damage, and loss of quality of life,” the suit says.
“I think what he would tell you is it’s not his eight years,” said Abraham Rubert-Schewel, his attorney. “It’s eight years in prison with, almost the entire time, thinking he could serve 40 years and that he might die there. But then, continuing to live with the conviction that you knew you were innocent of for nearly 30 years, until your lawyers discover there’s fingerprints just sitting in a police locker. So this is something that has weighed over him his whole adult life.”
Winterville attorney Keen Lassiter said he had not yet seen the suit and could not comment Wednesday. Last year, after the state vacated Carmon’s conviction, he said the officers involved no longer serve on the Winterville force.
Now a pastor at two churches, Carmon has long since been released for good behavior, become a pastor in his hometown, founded numerous nonprofits to mentor youth, and won enough honors that Winterville named the last Saturday in April as Darron Carmon Day.
But last year, he said he found justice elusive.
“Most of all, I’m thankful,” he told The N&O at the time. “It’s the one thing I asked God to do for me. Do I feel justice? I actually don’t. ... They can’t give me the time that they took.”
The lawsuit alleges that the officers knew they did not have probable cause to arrest Carmon, so they manufactured details in their investigative report, telling prosecutors that the victim had described the robber as approximately 5-foot-8 with short hair.
Greene and Armaos also “recklessly withheld” the print evidence, the suit says, knowing they would not match.
Those prints did not resurface until 2021, after Carmon’s post-conviction attorneys filed a public records request. Clark Everett, who was district attorney at the time, told attorneys he would have turned the evidence over if he knew it existed, the suit said.
Released in 2001, Carmon became pastor of Rebuild Christian Church. He also adopted five children and started several nonprofits, including Sikono Mentoring and People Against Racism.
“He literally rewrote my narrative,” said Darius Crumb, a mentoring graduate, according to WITN news. “I’m supposed to be on drugs. I’m supposed to be on the streets. I’m supposed to be a statistic, but because of this man, I’m not. I’m living proof that this program does work.”
When he spoke to the N&O last year, Carmon described growing up in a time when police routinely followed and watched Black men, believing all to be potential criminals.
He came from a family of pastors, and he was studying commercial arts at Pitt Community College. But that wouldn’t have mattered, he said, to officers investigating a robbery.
“To be honest, to be a Black male at that time, that really, really played a big part,” he said. “All you have to say is, ‘They have Timberlands and a hoodie on.’“
This story was originally published March 8, 2023 at 12:30 PM with the headline "NC pastor spent 8 years in prison for a robbery he didn’t commit. Now he’s suing.."