A flaw in an old case over 3 hot dogs allows NC man to be freed from prison
David Twitty’s life, which was thrown off the rails in part by a 1995 felony conviction involving $3.25 of convenience store food, is now his own.
At around midday Wednesday, a Moore County judge declared Twitty a free man. Twitty’s cell door will swing open, not based on dramatic new evidence but on a technicality in a long-ago case. Yet Superior Court Judge James Webb’s ruling ends a prison sentence that was scheduled to stretch on for another 20 years or more.
“They set him free,” a jubilant Travis Twitty, David Twitty’s son, told the Observer as he waited with other family members outside the Moore County Courthouse in Carthage while his father completed paperwork that would officially end his custody.
“I’m just happy that my dad can connect back with society, can connect with his family. The time he lost can never be gotten back. But to know he can reunite with all of us and bring around the joy he always had to give. To have this father-son time again, I never thought this day would come.”
Twitty, 57, of Charlotte, may be free. But no one is saying he is innocent.
Hot dogs, a pack of gum and a soda
As reported by the Observer, Twitty’s criminal record – most of it involving nonviolent, low-level property crimes and DWIs – stretches back for decades.
His favorite grift as a scam artist involved showing up at Sunday church services, often with his children, and lying to the congregations that his wife had been killed in an accident and that he needed money for his family.
In a series of phone conversations last week from Pender Correctional Institution, Twitty expressed remorse for his crimes but said he has been punished enough.
As of Wednesday, he had served 12 years for his dual 2010 convictions in Moore and Alamance counties for obtaining property under false pretenses. According to court documents, Twitty swindled churches and a individuals in both counties of less than $700 total.
But because he was convicted as a habitual offender, Twitter received consecutive sentences of as much as 33 1/2 years for low-level crimes that would otherwise have drawn far smaller prison terms.
Under North Carolina law, however, a defendant must have at least three felony convictions on his record to be prosecuted as a recidivist.
One of Twitty’s convictions dated back 26 years to Lincoln County where he pleaded guilty to obtaining property under false pretenses for accepting three hot dogs, a soda and a pack of gum from a convenience store manager in Denver. Twitty served seven months of a three-year sentence.
Last year, Twitty’s new attorney, Warren Hynson of Raleigh, found that the original Lincoln County indictment was defective because it did not show how Twitty’s behavior met the elements of the crime.
On Dec. 31, Twitty’s original Lincoln County judge threw out the 1995 conviction. That meant Twitty’s cases in Alamance and Moore counties no longer had enough “predicate felonies” to qualify Twitty as a habitual offender.
In January, an Alamance County judge tossed Twitty’s 12 1/2- to 16-year sentence from his 2010 conviction there and resentenced him to time served.
DA says he could re-indict
In Moore County on Wednesday, District Attorney Mike Hardin asked Webb to postpone Twitty’s hearing to give the prosecutor time to bring some of Twitty’s 44 Moore County victims to court.
According to Hardin, Twitty targeted three area churches. Under state law, Hardin said, those victims had a right to comment on any change to Twitty’s sentence.
“It was not my intent to give those congregations their pound of flesh,” Hardin told the Observer after the hearing. “He took money from some people who were really deserving, who were living hand to mouth.”
Webb, according to Hardin, declined to delay his decision. Twitty could be released as early as Wednesday evening.
How much time he has left as a free man is unclear. Twitty is receiving chemotherapy for Stage IV lung cancer and came into the courtroom in a wheelchair.
And there’s this: Hardin says that under state law, he could re-indict Twitty for related criminal behavior that was never brought to trial, a notion that some legal experts dispute. The Moore County prosecutor said he will decide his next move after he consults with Twitty’s victims.
For now, Travis Twitty says his family has plenty to celebrate, and that any festivities will involve “the finest steakhouse in Charlotte.”
“We’re going to go home, celebrate with the kids,” he said. “Let my dad relax, enjoy the fresh air, to experience freedom again.
“I can’t wait to get my arms around my father.”
This story was originally published March 17, 2021 at 6:04 PM.
