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From ring to cell: Wrestler claims innocence in jailhouse interview

“Reckless” Donnie Hart says he’s wrongly accused of robbing a Haddonfield Rite Aid at gunpoint and carjacking a retired priest.

Donnie Hart: “I’m a guy who made a lot of mistakes, but not what they’re accusing me of.” (Credit: SMSullivanPhotography.com)
Donnie Hart: “I’m a guy who made a lot of mistakes, but not what they’re accusing me of.” (Credit: SMSullivanPhotography.com)Read more

PIECES OF Donnie Hart's life were spread across a small table in a prison visiting room: pictures of his beloved late brother, of a fiancee who's long gone, of all the fans who used to look up to him in the wrestling ring.

Hart, 27, was still able to keep his signature Mohawk in the Camden County Jail, and his hulking frame hadn't shrunk, but all the bravado and bluster he showed as Reckless Donnie Hart was gone.

He was nervous, upset and, most of all, insistent that he was innocent - not the man who police say robbed a Haddonfield Rite Aid at gunpoint and carjacked a retired priest June 16. Hart was arrested July 28 at a convenience store in Cherry Hill, charged with robbery, aggravated assault and weapons offenses, and he's been sitting in jail since then in lieu of $315,000 cash bail.

It was all an unexpected body slam, Hart said.

"I thought it was about parking tickets," Hart told the Daily News in an interview at the jail. "I'm a guy who made a lot of mistakes, but not what they're accusing me of. I'll never admit to something I didn't do."

The Camden County Prosecutor's Office said that physical evidence was found in the car that Hart allegedly carjacked, and that lab results found a positive DNA match. Hart, of Mantua, Gloucester County, said that's all he knows about his case. The Camden County Prosecutor's Office said no upcoming court appearances are scheduled for him.

"I want to get out of here and clear my name," Hart said. "My family is behind me. I talk to my mom every day. There's definitely things in my life I need to fix, but I wasn't out there running wild in the streets of Camden. I mind my business. I want to get out of here. I want to be with my family."

Pro-football dreams

At Clearview Regional High School, Hart dreamed of playing football in the NFL. Just before Christmas in 2003, however, he fell asleep at the wheel and his car careened off the road. He crawled for two hours, jaw broken and leg shattered, to reach help.

"I would have been dead," he said. "I had to decide to get out of the car and live."

When school was over, the 6-4, 300-pound Hart joined the Monster Factory, one of the nation's oldest professional-wrestling schools, in hopes of achieving fame and fortune. In July, Monster Factory owner Danny Cage told the Daily News that Hart would have been dead already if it weren't for wrestling.

"He had a good heart but he was just troubled," Cage said then.

A central figure in most of the photos that Hart brought with him to the jailhouse interview was his older brother, Jimmy, who died unexpectedly while exploring Cambodia in 2014. James Hart, although smaller than Donnie, was his younger brother's rock, the go-to source for good advice.

"I always wanted to be like him," Hart said, his hands trembling. The brothers once took a road trip, together with Jimmy's bulldog, Braddock, that Hart remembers as one of the best times of his life. They traveled to Salt Lake City, to Boulder and to other cities on their way back east, crashing with friends.

"Any big decision I'd ever make in life, I would have asked him," Hart said.

Hart's story has similarities to that of another wrestler who spoke with the Daily News at the same prison.

Nick Wilson, known in the world of Combat Zone Wrestling as Nick F'n Gage, had been arrested for robbing a bank in Collingswood in 2010. In the Camden County Jail, Wilson admitted he'd done the crime and hoped the time would help him.

In May, the People Paper was there when Wilson, toned and full of energy, returned to the ring. "The past is the past," he said then. "It's all about the future, one day at a time."

This month, Wilson was taken back into custody on a parole violation.

His friend Brett Lauderdale said Wilson will return to the ring. "I've seen him through his ups and downs, and my opinion on him has never changed," Lauderdale said.

Hart, for now, has no plans to admit to anything he says he didn't do, even on his deathbed. During the interview with the Daily News, he held a letter he'd written to the newspaper on yellow paper. It mentions his fans and how he, like Nick Wilson, hopes to climb back into the ring, when he gets out of the "cage."

"I know I have a long, uphill battle," Hart wrote. "I was built for adversity and I will persevere through this like I have done so many times in the past."

On Twitter: @JasonNark