Plaintiff Wrongfully Convicted Man Accuses Law Enforcement Officers of Fabricating Evidence

In a dramatic legal twist, a man who spent nearly 25 years behind bars for a crime he insists he did not commit is seeking justice against those he claims orchestrated his wrongful conviction. Quincy Amerson filed a complaint on February 19, 2026, in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina against C. Martin Scott II, Michael Blaine East, Joseph Clyde Webb, and Sabrina Morgan Currin. Amerson alleges that these individuals knowingly used false evidence to secure his conviction.

The heart of Amerson’s case revolves around the events of August 7, 1999, when six-year-old Sharita Rivera was tragically killed after fleeing her home where her mother had been brutally murdered. The defendants allegedly assumed Sharita’s death was intentional because she was a witness to her mother’s murder and subsequently focused their investigation on Amerson. Despite lacking concrete evidence linking him to the crimes, Amerson was arrested based on dubious evidence including a jailhouse informant’s false testimony and a fabricated crash-reconstruction report.

Amerson contends that the defendants ignored crucial evidence pointing away from him and towards other potential suspects. Notably, they overlooked the fact that Patrice Rivera had been involved in an affair with Sgt. Major Randolph Hinton and had left threatening messages before her death. Instead of pursuing this lead or investigating other individuals who admitted to striking Sharita with their vehicles, the focus remained squarely on Amerson.

After spending over two decades in prison, Amerson was exonerated when it came to light that key pieces of evidence used against him were unreliable or outright fabricated. The Harnett County District Attorney’s Office acknowledged that the crash reconstruction report lacked any evidentiary basis and should never have been presented at trial. Now free, Amerson seeks accountability and monetary damages for what he describes as egregious violations of his constitutional rights under the Fourteenth Amendment.

Represented by attorneys from Pfeiffer Rudolf law firm, including David S. Rudolf and Sonya Pfeiffer among others, Amerson demands compensatory damages for his wrongful conviction and incarceration along with punitive damages aimed at deterring similar misconduct by law enforcement officers in the future. The case is presided over by Judge C. Winston Gilchrist under Case ID 5:26-cv-00098-D.