Bryant Cochran, a former Murray County, Ga., judge convicted in federal court last year, will remain free for at least another two weeks.
Cochran was supposed to go to U.S. District Court in Rome, Ga., on Thursday morning for a sentencing hearing. But Judge Harold Murphy agreed earlier this week to push that hearing back to July 8. Murphy, who agreed to let Cochran remain free until he is sentenced, now has delayed the hearing twice.
Bryant CochranIn December, a jury convicted Cochran of six charges, including sexually harassing a female employee, illegally searching through another employee’s phone, framing a woman for arrest and asking a childhood friend to lie to investigators.
The sentences for the charges vary. But the harshest – tampering with a witness – carries a sentence of up to 20 years in federal prison.
Cochran was the magistrate in Murray County from 2005-12.
But prosecutors convinced a jury that Cochran told one of his tenants in August 2012 to plant methamphetamine on the car of Angela Garmley. The prosecutors said Cochran did that because Garmley accused him of sexual harassment.
When members of the Murray County Sheriff’s Office stopped Garmley’s car one night, a deputy searched the car but couldn’t find any drugs. Capt. Michael Henderson, who is Cochran’s cousin, then called the magistrate.
Henderson and the deputy then found the drugs in the wheel well of Garmley’s car. But Conasauga Judicial Circuit District Attorney Bert Poston dropped the charges soon after, suspicious of the case. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation began looking into the sheriff’s office, and into Cochran.
Henderson and the deputy, Josh Greeson, later pleaded guilty to an obstruction charge. Cochran went to trial in December.
In April, Cochran’s estranged wife accused him of stalking her. Shalina Cochran said he went into their house, grabbed his son’s cellphone and tried to figure out how he could track her, according to a Dalton Police Department incident report.
That same day, she told an officer she saw Bryant Cochran driving past her a house where she and her new boyfriend were visiting. The police then found him nearby in his car.
“He stated that he was over there to see if his ex-wife, Shalina Cochran, was dating someone else,” Officer Richard Cook wrote in his report. “Bryant stated that he believed he had a right to know this information, due to him having children with Shalina.”
Bryant Cochran, meanwhile, also is about to lose his house, court records show. A foreclosing bank is scheduled to auction off the property next month.
Contact staff writer Tyler Jett at 423-757-6476 or tjett@timesfreepress.com.
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