The timing of Angela Garmley’s arrest immediately raised suspicion.
Just days before, the Chatsworth woman had gone public with accusations that Murray County Chief Magistrate Judge Bryant Cochran had propositioned her in his chambers. Now, during an Aug. 14, 2012, traffic stop, a sheriff’s deputy found a container of methamphetamine stuck to the bottom of Garmley’s car.
As it turned out, the drugs had been planted. A subsequent GBI and FBI investigation, culminated this week, has resulted in an indictment alleging that Cochran, while a judge, participated in helping frame Garmley on false charges.
On Wednesday, the U.S. Attorney’s Office announced that a grand jury indicted Cochran for civil rights violations, witness tampering, conspiring to distribute methamphetamine and sexually assaulting a county employee over a six-year span.
Atlanta criminal defense attorney Don Samuel, who has followed the case, cautioned that the indictment contains only allegations.
“But if this is proven, this behavior is beyond abhorrent and shocking,” Samuel said. “A judge conspiring to plant evidence on someone? It’s hard for me to imagine any worse corruption in the criminal justice system. It’s so far over the edge it’s hard to conceive of the criminal justice system surviving with that kind of behavior.”
Cochran, 44, served eight years as a Murray County magistrate in Chatsworth, located about 90 miles from Atlanta in the foothills of the North Georgia mountains.
He resigned the day after Garmley’s arrest while being investigated by the state’s Judicial Qualifications Commission, which had found Cochran had pre-signed arrest warrants for police to fill out when he was out of the office.
Cochran’s lawyer, Page Pate, said his client “intends to plead not guilty because he is not guilty.”
“The government is relying on very questionable statements made by convicted defendants with plea deals,” Pate said. “If they had a good case, they would have charged him a long time ago.”
The sexual assault against the county employee, identified only by her initials, began in early 2006 and ended in August 2012, the indictment said.
“That charge is ridiculous,” Pate said. “If anyone was being overly suggestive, it was the person identified by her initials in the indictment.”
In recent years, dozens of Georgia judges have resigned in disgrace while being investigated for ethical violations. But the accusations against Cochran are breathtaking: a judge who allegedly took advantage of his position to get sexual favors from women and then, when one complained publicly about his come-ons, helped set her up on false charges that could have sent her to prison.
In a prior interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Garmley said she appeared before Cochran in his chambers on April 9, 2012, to take out a warrant against three people she alleged had assaulted her. Before she left, she said, the judge propositioned her.
“He said he wanted to have a mistress he could trust,” Garmley said.
Cochran asked Garmley to return to court a few days later wearing a dress and no underwear, she said. “He said if I did that, I would be very satisfied with the decision he’d make on my case.”
As soon as she left the courthouse, Garmley said, Cochran began texting and calling her, and also asked her to bring him a prepaid cellphone he could use to communicate with her.
Garmley said she did not agree to Cochran’s requests and went public with her allegations because she did not want this to happen to anyone else. But less than a week later, while riding with her husband and another man, Garmley’s car was pulled over during a traffic stop. They were arrested after Murray County sheriff’s Deputy Joshua Greeson found a magnetic box stuck to the bottom of the car containing five packets of methamphetamine.
After a lawyer representing the Garmleys said they’d been framed, the GBI launched an investigation that led to the Garmleys being cleared of all charges.
Last year, Greeson pleaded guilty to lying during a civil rights investigation. He has admitted that sheriff’s Capt. Michael Henderson, who is Cochran’s cousin, told him to keep a lookout for Garmley’s car.
Henderson has pleaded guilty to obstructing a federal investigation. Also, Clifford Joyce, Cochran’s tenant and handyman, has pleaded guilty to drug distribution for planting the methamphetamine under Garmley’s car.
On Wednesday, U.S. Attorney Sally Yates said that after the initial traffic stop, law enforcement officers searched for up to 20 minutes but couldn’t find drugs in Garmley’s car. After that, Henderson had a short telephone conversation with Cochran and, following that call, Henderson told an officer at the scene that Garmley hid drugs under the car, Yates said.
Only then did Greeson find the metal box attached precisely where Henderson said it would be, Yates said.
“Cochran is charged with crimes that reflect he completely abused the power and trust given to him by the people of Murray County,” Yates said.
McCracken Poston, the Garmleys’ lawyer, applauded the indictment.
“Now that the government has finally made federal criminal charges against the former judge,” he said, “we look forward to watching Mr. Cochran avail himself of each and every constitutional right and privilege that he wanted to deny my clients.”
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