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After a grand jury indicted a handful of voters in North Carolina on federal charges of illegally voting as a noncitizen, some of the defendants, who are longtime legal residents of the country, had strong words to share in response.
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“It’s just jacked up,” Lawton McKenzie, a Wayne County resident originally from Jamaica, told reporters outside the courthouse on Thursday.
McKenzie is one of 10 defendants charged with illegally voting in the 2024 elections — a felony punishable by up to five years in prison. All but one of the defendants are legal permanent residents of the country, most of whom have lived in the U.S. for decades.
Most of the defendants declined to comment to reporters on Thursday, and they did not enter pleas at their hearing.
But Robert Corbett, a Wake County resident, told reporters he’d only recently learned he was not a citizen and therefore ineligible to vote.
“I was born in Canada. I did not find out that I was adopted until I was 51 years old, and my understanding was that my mother was American,” he said. “… I would never break the law.”
Corbett said he has a Social Security number and has worked his whole adult life in the U.S. without issue.
A press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of North Carolina stated that Corbett has voted in at least six elections since 1998.
Corbett said that in 2024 — the election he is charged with voting illegally in — he cast his ballot for President Donald Trump.
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Asked how he felt about Trump’s administration bringing this charge against him, Corbett said, “I’m not happy about any of it, but maybe I need to call Donald Trump.”
McKenzie said he voted after receiving an invitation in the mail to register.
“If y’all mail stuff out to people and y’all send people out to come and sign up — that’s entrapment,” he said, noting that he showed his permanent resident card as identification when he registered to vote.
U.S. Attorney Ellis Boyle told reporters at a press conference that he believes the defendants knew they were ineligible to vote.
“They signed their name on the (registration) form saying they were citizens,” he said. “We believe they knew that was not true. I don’t care if they say they were confused, they can tell that to a jury.”
Corbett and McKenzie both said they were arrested on Wednesday and kept in custody overnight before the hearing.
“I’m exhausted, they put us through the mill,” Corbett said. “There was nowhere to sleep, people were sleeping on the floors. I was lucky, I got to sleep in a chair.”
McKenzie reported similar conditions.
“They had us sleeping on concrete floor,” he said. “No mats, no blanket. Some people didn’t even have shoes.”
After Thursday’s hearing, at least eight of the defendants, including McKenzie and Corbett, were released from custody until their next court date.
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This story was originally published October 16, 2026 at 11:04 AM.