Bryant CochranROME, Ga. -- One day in August 2012, former Murray County Magistrate Bryant Cochran told a longtime friend to take off his shirt.
The friend, Mike Winkler, said they were standing outside the Chatsworth home of Cochran's parents. Cochran told Winkler he didn't know who he could trust anymore, that he needed friends who could help him.
He asked Winkler if he was wearing a wire, was recording their conversation so he could report back to members of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. Winkler said he wasn't. He lifted his shirt up and twisted around so Cochran could be sure.
Then, Winkler testified this morning, Cochran asked him to lie to investigators.
Cochran is on trial in U.S. District Court for six criminal charges stemming from his time as Murray County's magistrate. Among those charges is an allegation that he tried to convince Winkler to obstruct a criminal investigation. That charge carries the harshest potential punishment against Cochran: Up to 20 years in federal prison.
In July 2012, a resident named Angela Garmley told the Judicial Qualificaitons Commission and several media outlets that Cochran had sexually harassed her in his office. A couple weeks later, the Murray County Sheriff's Office arrested Garmley on a charge of possession of methamphetamine after finding a can filled with the drug attached to the bottom of her car.
The arrest didn't stick. The district attorney dropped the charges and three people went to prison, supposedly for framing Garmley. A Murray County deputy and captain pleaded guilty to obstruction charges, and one of Cochran's tenants pleaded guilty to a conspiracy to distribute.
Federal prosecutors have attempted to link Cochran to the illegal arrest of Garmley. When deputies pulled her over that night in August 2012, they searched the car but couldn't find any drugs. Capt. Michael Henderson -- Cochran's cousin -- then called Cochran, who told him to look under the car.
Cochran has maintained that he simply passed along a tip he received from Winkler. This morning, Winkler said this was not true.
He recalled that meeting with Cochran soon after Garmley's arrest, when Cochran asked if he was wearing a wire. Winkler told the jury this morning that Cochran asked him to tell the Georgia Bureau of Investigation that he gave Cochran that tip to arrest Garmley -- something Henderson had already told the GBI.
"(Cochran) just said he would owe me a favor," Winkler told the jury. "It would help him out a lot ... It would possibly keep him out of jail."
Winkler later met with the GBI, but he didn't give them that information. He also didn't tell investigators that Cochran asked him to lie. He said this morning that at first he just wanted to stay out of the ordeal.
But his conscience ate away at him, he told the jury. He feared he broke the law when he didn't report that conversation. He said he relayed the information to Gale Buchner, the woman who replaced Cochran as Murray County's magistrate. She happened to be related to Winkler.
Buchner told him to report it, and a couple days later he told FBI agents about his conversation with Cochran.
Cochran's attorney, Page Pate, argued that Winkler is lying, that he was the one who actually gave Cochran the tip about where Garmley kept drugs on her car. Winkler is close friends with Cochran's niece and talked to her on the phone many times before Garmley's arrest. He also talked to Cochran several times in July and August 2012.
More than 2-½ years later, Winkler can't remember what he talked about with Cochran and Cochran's niece -- something Pate found hard to believe.
Also, Winkler told Cochran that Garmley did drugs, something Winkler told the jury was common knowledge throughout Chatsworth. What's more, Winkler is close with Garmley's daughter, who was in a relationship with Winkler's nephew.
Winkler once filmed Garmley's daughter talking about her mother's drug habits. He said this morning that he did this because he was supporting Cochran. He wanted to help Cochran.
His loyalty changed, he said, when Cochran asked him to lie to the GBI. He knew Garmley did drugs, but he never gave Cochran a tip about how he could catch her with drugs, especially not under her car.
"Did you tell him where drugs might be in Angela Garmley's car?" William McKinnon Jr. asked Winkler.
"No," he said.
"Did you ever have any more detail about how she was carrying it?"
"No."