The Martin Firm - selected case information

LEDGER-ENQUIRER

LOCAL

Thursday, March 6, 1997

Jury finds attorney Garner not guilty

Lawyer was charged with selling, buying cocaine, trying to influence witness' testimony

By Jim Houston Staff Writer

The jury said Columbus attorney Michael Garner was not guilty of federal drug and witness tampering charges, but Garner said the experience still leaves him "branded" and with a tarnished reputation.

"I still feel like I got a life sentence," Garner, 50, said moments after the U.S. District Court jury of nine women and three men acquitted him Wednesday of charges of conspiring to possess and distribute cocaine, and attempting to influence two former exotic dancers who were grand jury witnesses in his case.

"I have been branded by Metro and I'll be branded for the rest of my life," Garner said, referring to the Metro Narcotics Task Force that investigated and brought the charges against him.

"No matter what happens, in that respect, they won. That's what they set out to do."

Former Columbus Mayor Frank Martin, who represented Garner, said he wasn't surprised when the verdict was read two hours after the jury began deliberating. "We think this was the right verdict, and so did the jury," he said.

Garner, who frequently represents people accused of drug sale and

possession in federal and stale cases, said he has been investigated at least four times by the local narcotics unit, with the last one beginning in 1994.

Evidence presented by Assistant U.S. Attorney Charles Calhoun during the trial included testimony from former exotic dancers Allison Jordan Runyan and Tracy Lee Norris, who danced at a local strip club and claimed Garner provided them with cocaine in the club and in his law office.

Tracy Lee Norris, a legal secretary for Garner until he told her she could not be a stripper and continue to work for him, also testified she lived with a drug dealer, Ricky Burt, who bought cocaine from Garner, and that Garner also sometimes bought cocaine from Burt.

Burt testified that he was charged with four drug sale felonies, but his cases were never tried and he never spent a day in jail. He was granted federal immunity for his testi-mony against Garner, he said
Other testimony included convicted cocaine dealer Caio Rosato's claim that Garner volunteered to transport cocaine from Columbus to Panama City Beach, Fla, on Memorial Day weekend, 1993.

Garner denied all of the allegations, claiming they were the product of promises of immunity narcotics investigators handed out to get drug dealers and users to implicate him.

After the jury verdict, Calhoun shook hands with Martin and Garner.

"The jury has spoken," the prosecutor said. "I respect their verdict". We put on what we had. I don't disagree with a jury verdict."