Angela GarmleyFormer Murray County Magistrate Bryant Cochran will learn how long he is going to prison in two months.
U.S. District Court Judge Harold Murphy set Cochran’s sentencing hearing for June 18. A jury convicted Cochran in December of six charges, including violating three women’s civil rights, conspiring to distribute methamphetamine and tampering with a witness.
Prosecutors convinced a jury that Cochran told one of his tenants in the summer of 2012 to plant methamphetamine under the car of Angela Garmley, a Chatsworth woman who publicly accused Cochran of sexually harassing her. Garmely said Cochran asked her to become his mistress and send him lewd pictures when she requested he issue arrest warrants against her neighbors, Cochran’s role as a magistrate.
After Garmley spoke out, a Murray County deputy stopped Garmley’s car in August 2012. A drug sniffing dog could not find any drugs on the vehicle. But a Murray County captain, who happened to be Cochran’s cousin, talked to the magistrate. Cochran told him to check under Garmley’s wheel well.
There, the sheriff’s office found the drugs. The deputy then wrote in an arrest report that he knew to check that location because of his extensive training. He did not mention Cochran.