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Meldamion Antoine Huguley wants $1,149,000 for the damage his time in the Alamance County jail did to his writing career after the 2018 robbery of two Biscuitville employees.
Huguley is still writing, most notably petitions to federal court from USP Hazelton, a high-security federal prison in Preston County, W.Va. In March, he filed a civil rights complaint against 14 defendants, including the Burlington Police Department, the jail, the sheriff, individual officers, magistrates, a prosecutor, the county, the state and the state of Georgia.
Before this prison sentence, Huguley published under the nom de plume Damion King, according to his complaint. “A Hustla’z Ambition,” parts one and two, are available on Alpha XR — free on Kindle and $13 in paperback. They tell the story of King and Capo, who dominate the drug trade in Atlanta while trying to find love and a way out of their lives of crime. Reviewers gave the first one four and a half stars, though several wrote that the story became confused with too many characters. A third book, “Spread Ya Hustle: The Blueprint to Financial Success,” is a “one-of-a-kind self-help book.”
In his complaint, Huguley charges the defendants with false arrest, false imprisonment, and slandering his reputation as an author. He was arrested Feb. 16, 2018, and held in the jail until March 6, 2019, according to his complaint, at which point he started a sentence of one year and seven months in state prison, according to the N.C. Department of Public Safety, for a conviction of having a "shank“ in jail.
According to federal court records, Huguley robbed two employees Jan. 14, 2018, outside the Biscuitville at 2045 N. Church St., Burlington, after closing while they were getting ready to take the day’s receipts to the bank. Huguley had a mask, the victims said, but they knew him and recognized him by his build, mannerisms and heavy scaring around his eye.
Huguley had been fired from that Biscuitville the month before for violent behavior, according to federal records, and made threats two days before when he came to the restaurant complaining that his last paycheck was short, saying, “You don’t know who you’re dealing with. … You owe me money.”
The robbery victims said they were in a car when Huguley approached the passenger-side window with a pistol and demanded the money. One victim said the deposit was in the trunk. Huguley made him get out, according to the federal record, and open it. He fired a shot into the trunk because it took too long to find the money. Huguley took $2,900 and ran, dropping his cellphone as he went past the drive-through window. One of the victims used it to call police.
He was arrested a month later in Fayetteville, Ga.
Huguley pleaded guilty to federal charges of interference with commerce by robbery, and possession of ammunition by a convicted felon. He had been convicted in 1999 of two counts of aggravated assault in Georgia and was sentenced to 15 years.
North Carolina charges in the Biscuitville robbery were dismissed, according to Huguley’s complaint, which is why he claims to have grounds for a charge of false arrest and imprisonment.
He is expected to be released from prison in late 2025, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons. But he also petitioned to have that sentence and plea agreement set aside last month, saying his court-appointed defense lawyer “deceitfully and maliciously coerced me to sign a defective plea agreement” because he was never identified as the masked assailant.
