Sharon Armstrong Speaks from Prison of being Foolish for a Man (Video) (723 hits)
By Campbell Live staff
Armstrong considers herself a family woman. She says she's been without a partner for "many years, and that's a choice" - deciding to put her energies into her work and her familyl; She even moved to Australia to be closer to them. Unbeknownst to Ms Armstrong, a cousin signed her up to a dating website. "I was pretty horrified when she did, and said ‘I'm not looking for a man. I’m quite happy and content with my life’," she says. Ms Armstrong says she felt the website was “creepy”, but when an attractive man contacted her, she decided to give online dating a go. "[He] looked really nice, really friendly, warm, all of those things. He had a nice profile."
Her family encouraged her to become friends with the man, who they believed to be a civil engineer who lived nearby, so Ms Armstrong and the man arranged to meet at her house the following weekend. The morning of the meeting, the man told Ms Armstrong that he was being called away for a prospective job, and the two stayed in touch via email. When the man told her he had been admitted to an expensive private hospital in London, Ms Armstrong sent him money. “I foolishly sent money to support him while he was there,” she says. She returned to New Zealand, and the man told her that as soon as he wrapped things up in London, he would join her there. Their relationship progressed, and when the man asked Ms Armstrong to go to Argentina to complete some business on his behalf and then meet him in London, she agreed. “By this stage, I’d had communication from a woman who I understood was in Spain. She was organising everything, organising the travel. I’d had some really nice emails from her.”
The night before Ms Armstrong was due to leave for London, she was rung by another person who advised her the documents would already be packaged in a suitcase, and she was expected to take the lot as it was. She then met a woman at the front of the hotel. "We got in the taxi and went to another place somewhere in town. She left me for about five minutes, went away, came back with the suitcase," she says. "It was huge... It was very solid." Ms Armstrong says the sheer size of the case led her to assume it was the correct weight. “I know that there have been questions about why didn’t I know about the weight, but I’d never ever come across a suitcase like this before. I’ve never had a suitcase that big.” Once she got back to her hotel room, she says the first thing she did was open the case.
"I couldn't see any documents in there, so I spoke to this man and I said ‘why can't I see them’, and he said ‘I don't know’. I said ‘obviously they’ve put them in the bottom… I want to open it, and have a look, and take the documents out’." The man told her to do so, which flustered her. He then advised her to speak to the woman in Spain. Ms Armstrong emailed the woman, asking her why the documents were hidden. The woman told her that there were “bad people here in Argentina, this is a very important contract”, and that it was hidden for her own safety. The woman also advised Ms Armstrong that should she be stopped by customs she should tell them about the documents and that they are welcome to take a look.
Ms Armstrong says she didn't think it could be drugs. "I don't know whether I wanted to believe them – I honestly don't know in terms of what I was thinking, but I was feeling reassured with the second time I raised it, particularly when she said ‘it's ok to tell them’." Ms Armstrong arrived at the airport and was waiting at Duty Free when she heard her name called. She went to the gate and was met by airport security and police. They told her they had identified something strange in her bag. "I was starting to feel apprehensive at this stage," she says. She was left to wait for a long time, then was taken to a room where her bag was opened and searched. She told them about the documents. "They lifted the bottom of the bag up and I immediately saw that there were three packages that were wrapped in what I thought was masking tape."
It was then that she started to think that it wasn't documents she was carrying after all. She was advised that police would be testing for drugs, and as soon as they slit the packages open, she could see it was some type of powder. The test was carried out and came back positive. "At that stage, I lost it," Ms Armstrong said. "The main thing I remember is saying ‘no, no, no, this isn't happening’."Ms Armstrong was then arrested. She acknowledges that she can’t convince everyone that she's telling the truth, but has the love and support of her family. "All I can do is keep telling it the way that it is. I had no intention of being part of a drug trafficking organisation. If I had known there were drugs in my bag, I would have gone to the police," she says.
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14 Jul 2011 3:34p.m. Seriously? When has Sharon played the 'Im Maori card?' Because as far as I can tell she has just told her story as asked to. Love makes you do crazy things, you can't all tell me you have never made a stupid decsion based on emotions, lonelinees, love etc. You have to remeber that she had been talking to this man for 3 months and had fallen in love....I think whats happened to Sharon is disgusting....Yes it could have ben prevented if she had of looked in the bottom of the bag.....She trusted this man.....She had no reason not to believe himk in her head...Hine sight would be a wonderful thing! It's easy for us to sit here and judge as we had no emotions invested in this, we are outside looking in. Kia Kaha Sharon and Whanau...Our thoughts and prays are with you all.
Stevo
10 Jul 2011 5:06p.m. I hope the sentencing Judge takes into account her lies and gives her the maximum sentence available. I can not believe the media is sympathetic to this drug smuggler.
Raewyn
02 Jun 2011 7:21p.m. Loneliness and a desperate need to believe in someone who is a strong,loving, and well educated guy mixed with lies and deceit is a crime just waiting too happen. I believe you Sharon being Educated does not exclude you from making poor jugdements and wicked mistakes. Kia Kaha Sharon and whanau
Jodee Watts
01 Jun 2011 8:32p.m. For obvious reasons this does not seem to appear good for Sharon. She herself admits to making bad judgement calls and she also admitted making calls and sending an email to her contact .... I'd like to see a copy of this email in the same way her family brought her copies of her facebook messages. It’s easy to come to the conclusion she was naive or worse she was aware of her actions at the time and I too am leaning that way. However, I'd also prefer to see all the information available too before coming to a final conclusion. It’s a great pity her family didn’t take the opportunity to present some of the emails spoken about at this TV interview. Seeing some hard evidence of her story would have helped to balance the situation for me as a viewer.
Rob
01 Jun 2011 8:20p.m. what a load of crap. Playing the Maori card because you got caught!..Whanau this whanau that pffft!... Admit it, you saw the opportunity to make a quick buck and you got busted! No the maori party aint coming to get you so stop trying to make this a Maori issue. I'm Maori and we have more important things to worry about then drug traffickers like yourself. If you have access to the internet while in lockdown, facebook Shapelle Corby, i heard shes looking for new friends.
daniel
01 Jun 2011 4:43p.m. Hey Laurie-wonderful use of the English language, but open your eyes and get a life ! This woman knew exactly what she was doing, and is only mad, and now frightened, because she got caught. She can bleat all she likes, but she knows, and we know, she's a drug mule. Drug mule's need to be locked up forever ! She might be fooling her whanau, but she's not foling me.
john/linda
01 Jun 2011 4:18p.m. We both thought that she was genuine in her explanations and her body language conveyed this...a virtually impossible thing to fake on TV with half a million sceptical eyes assessing. However the question of whether she colluded or was an innocent gullible participant is largely irrelevant..she was caught as a courier and justice will be meted out on that basis.
