Life-changing decision
A Palm Beach County man goes through boot camp to avoid prison, with a little help from ‘The Rock.’
Avery Plemons, a 20-year-old construction worker from Palm Beach County, spent four grueling months at a Miami prison boot camp to refocus his bad decisions. It was either that or spend the rest of his life in prison.
Quite the deal for a then 18-yearold charged with two counts of armed home invasion after a night in Miami with friends.
The Boot Camp Program at the Miami-Dade County Corrections and Rehabilitation Department not only transformed him, it made him the star of a documentary.
Plemons is one of 38 young offenders featured in a new HBO documentary by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson titled “Rock and a Hard Place.” The film follows the boot camp cadets in their last-ditch effort to avoid lengthy prison terms.
In the film, Plemons speaks directly to Johnson, who serves as executive producer. It was Johnson’s own troubled youth that inspired the film.
“By the time I was 16, I had been arrested multiple times for a variety of things, and can The documentary is available on HBO ON DEMAND, HBO NOW and HBO GO. relate to what these kids are going through,” Johnson said in a press release.
The documentary’s directors, Jon Alpert and Matthew O’Neill, spoke highly of Plemons.
“He, by far, made the greatest physical transformation. It’s this idea of discipline, making your physical body reflect the state that you want your mind to be in,” Alpert told The Post.
Plemons says he watched the film recently at his parents’ home in Haverhill. He watched himself cry when he heard his mom’s voice during a short phone call, and doing push-ups with instructors screaming in his face.
Drill instructor Virgilio Lopez was Plemons’ biggest influence during his time in the program. Lopez was the authority figure who didn’t give up on him or write him off, he says.
“Anybody can change their life around as long as you don’t write them off and jump to conclusions,” Plemons said in a phone interview.
Lopez, who has been a part of the boot camp program for eight years, says there is a larger rea-
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