Posted on 03/07/2003 10:21:11 AM PST by freepatriot32
Federal agents have arrested a Morgan County sheriff's deputy suspected of distributing marijuana. The deputy, Gregory Lamar Johnson, said Monday the accusations are false and come from people trying to mitigate their own trouble.
Johnson was released from custody by U.S. Magistrate Judge Harwell Davis III on a $10,000 unsecured bond.
Johnson and his lawyer, Robert Shipman of Huntsville, have waived a preliminary hearing. Federal prosecutors can seek an indictment from a grand jury.
Prosecutors filed a complaint in federal court Monday signed by FBI special agent Patrick Stokes. In the court papers, Stokes said several accusers stated that Johnson either delivered marijuana to them or acquired the drug from them.
Mike Ponzo, special agent in charge of the FBI's Huntsville office, said Johnson was arrested through leads developed in an unrelated drug investigation.
Johnson said Monday the statements from alleged witnesses are untrue and the drug charges are not true.
''Wait and see what happens, and the truth is going to be found out,'' he said.
Among the accusations in Stokes' statement:
On Jan. 7, Stokes interviewed a woman about distribution of drugs in Decatur and Moulton. He reviewed calls placed on her cellular telephone and located the coded entry ''GR.'' The woman said the initials referred to Greg Johnson.
The witness said she met Johnson while he was a bouncer at a nightclub in Decatur and developed a relationship with him.
She said Johnson brought her marijuana at least three times and that one delivery was contained inside a Hillsboro Police Department evidence envelope.
Johnson is a former Hillsboro police officer.
On Feb. 8, Stokes interviewed an investigator with the Lawrence County district attorney's office who said a case against a man charged with possession of marijuana was dismissed because the marijuana was lost. The investigator said Johnson had picked up the marijuana from a crime lab of the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences.
Johnson had given about 42 grams of marijuana to an official at the lab on Oct. 12, 2001, then retrieved that marijuana on March 25, 2002, and signed for it.
Johnson had told an assistant district attorney in Lawrence County that he had taken the marijuana from Hillsboro to North Courtland, where he had a new job as a police officer. But officials at the North Courtland Police Department had told the district attorney they were not holding any drugs for evidence.
Another witness said that in July 2002, he saw Johnson sell a man an ounce of marijuana for $60 or $70. The same witness said that in January 2003, Johnson told him he and a partner had brought 25 pounds of marijuana from Texas. Johnson told the witness he could get him anything he wanted and quoted him a price of $800 per pound.
On Feb. 8, Stokes contacted a detective with the drug squad of the Morgan County Sheriff's Department and asked about Johnson. The detective said Johnson had never worked undercover in the investigation of drugs or voluntarily provided drug information to any member of the drug squad, the detective said.
The case is being investigated by the Morgan County Sheriff's Department, the FBI and Decatur police.
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