The Justice Department is investigating the circumstances behind the recent arrest of a North Georgia woman just days after she publicly accused a judge of propositioning her in his office, law enforcement officials familiar with the investigation said.
The U.S. attorney’s office joins an ongoing GBI investigation of Angela Garmley’s arrest during an Aug. 14 traffic stop in which she was charged with drug possession.
Murray County deputy Josh Greeson, who made the arrest, said he pulled over the car Garmley was riding in because the driver didn’t dim his bright lights. After a drug dog alerted, Greeson wrote in his incident report, he found a magnetic box stuck to the bottom of the car containing what appeared to be crystal methamphetamine.
After Garmley’s lawyer, McCracken Poston, said his client had been set up, a subsequent GBI investigation resulted in Garmley being cleared of all charges.
In a statement issued late Wednesday, Garmley, 36, of Chatsworth said, “We thank the GBI for the way they have investigated every lead and responded to our own information. We feel like steps toward justice are being taken.”
John Horn, the first assistant U.S. attorney in Atlanta, declined comment when asked about the federal investigation. But The Atlanta Journal-Constitution confirmed federal interest in the arrest with law enforcement sources. Their names are being withheld because they are not authorized to speak publicly about the case.
If federal prosecutors are looking at the case, it means obstruction of justice and civil rights charges could be forthcoming, said Atlanta defense attorney Don Samuel.
“If they’re found guilty,” Samuel said of those involved in Garmley’s arrest, “they’re going to be seeing the jail cells they’ve been hanging around, but from the other side.”
Poston said if criminal charges are filed against those responsible for Garmley’s arrest, “we want those charged to avail themselves of their full rights under law and to receive the very due process of law that they tried to deny my client. Only then can we get back to the way things ought to be under our system of justice.”
Before her arrest, Garmley publicly accused then-Chief Murray County Magistrate Bryant Cochran of propositioning her in April when she appeared before him in his office.
Her complaint prompted a state Judicial Qualifications Commission ethics investigation, which also found Cochran had been pre-signing arrest warrants for law enforcement officials to fill out when he was not in the office.
Cochran, who denied propositioning Garmley, resigned Aug. 15. In a statement, he accepted responsibility for pre-signing arrest warrants. The GBI also is investigating this case.
Cochran’s lawyer, Page Pate, said Thursday his client had no involvement in Garmley’s arrest. “Once the facts are known about the arrest, then it will be clear that Mr. Cochran had nothing to do with it,” he said.
Greeson was fired Wednesday from the Murray County Sheriff’s Department. His supervisor, Capt. Michael Henderson, who is Cochran’s cousin, has been suspended.
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