A Lawrence man convicted of robbing a convenience store at gunpoint stood up in court Friday and delivered a speech that he hoped would help keep him from going to prison.

“I felt like the world was closing in on me and I had no other choice,” 20-year-old Darnell Thomas told District Court Judge Robert Fairchild.

Thomas said that in the months prior to the Aug. 24 robbery at Presto, 2330 Iowa, he’d lost his job, become homeless and was sleeping on the floors of crack houses, even though he said he didn’t use drugs.

“I lost a lot of weight. My hygiene was bad. I was headed nowhere fast,” he said.

Under sentencing guidelines, Thomas faces a 52-month prison sentence for robbery, but he’s asking the judge to make an exception to the guidelines to allow boot camp or probation. Fairchild postponed making a decision, but he said he would consider the six-month boot camp in Labette. Thomas will be back in court Jan. 9.

A co-defendant, Marcus J. Bell, 20 at the time of his arrest, still has charges pending.