Sexual predator or innocent victim? Former judge Bryant Cochran on trial

photo Bryant Cochran
Arkansas-LSU Live Blog

ROME, Ga. -- Bryant Cochran, the former Murray County magistrate, is a powerful sexual predator willing to break the law to hurt victims who speak out against him. Either that, or he fell prey to a disgruntled woman who tried to end his career when he didn't help her as much as she wanted.

Lawyers provided alternate narratives to the jury this morning during opening arguments in U.S. District Court. Cochran faces charges of conspiring against someone's rights, depriving someone of civil rights, conspiring to distribute a controlled substance and intimidating a witness. If convicted, he could go to prison for 20 years.

The controversy began in April 2012, when a woman named Angela Garmley visited Cochran's office. She asked the magistrate to hold a hearing, determining whether three people who beat Garmley should get arrested.

Cochran held the hearing and issued a warrant for their arrest.

But before he did that, the prosecution told the jury, Cochran asked Garmley to be his mistress. He wanted her to come back to his office wearing a dress with no underwear. They flirted in text messages, and Garmley agreed to send one lewd picture to the magistrate.

Three months later, Garmley reported the incident to the Georgia Judicial Qualifications Commission. During its investigation, the JQC learned that Cochran signed warrants before the police even told him why they needed them, and Cochran resigned from office.

Around the same time, the Murray County Sheriff's Office arrested Garmley for possession of methamphetamine. One of Cochran's tenants confessed to planting the drugs on Garmley's car and went to prison. Meanwhile, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation caught the arresting officers lying, and they later pleaded guilty to obstruction.

The prosecution says that Cochran orchestrated Garmley's arrest, though Cochran has said he only passed along a tip he received from a citizen, a man who happened to be a childhood friend.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Davis told the jury this morning that Cochran sexually harassed Garmley because he thought he could get away with it. Garmley was known as a drug addict within the community, Davis said.

Also, Cochran ran an office rampant with sexual harassment, an officer where he could fondle his clerk from behind and search through his secretary's cell phone without her permission.

"The only reason he targeted Ms. Garmley was because she was a drug user," Davis said. "No one would ever believe the word of a drug user over a judge."

Defense Attorney Page Pate, meanwhile, painted a different picture.

"It is an incredibly interesting story," he said of the prosecution's narrative. "The problem is, there is no evidence to support it."

Pate said Cochran is the real victim. He told the jury that Garmley was the one who started flirting with Cochran so that he would issue warrants against her assailants.

But when Cochran issued the warrants, Garmley was still upset because he set the bond too low. Garmley didn't report the crimes to the JQC, meanwhile, until her husband found out she had sent a lewd picture to Cochran. She pretended to be a victim, Pate said.

Pate added that Garmley and Cochran's female employees claimed he sexually harassed them so they could sue him.

As for Garmley's arrest, Pate told the jury that Cochran passed along tips to the police, but only because his friends knew that Garmley was transferring methamphetamine. They were mad that she was making Cochran look bad, so they told the magistrate about her crimes.

The trial will resume at 1:30 p.m. today.

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