Tampa federal prosecutor

Tampa – When Jimmie Gardner was arrested 18 months ago for accusations of human trade, the Tampa authorities quickly exchanged his previous prison sentence and his relationship with a democratic politician.

The police and public prosecutor accused the 58-year-old Gardner to pay a 16-year-old girl for sex, and then suffocated her when she opposed his progress. The news of his arrest became a minor political sensation. It also attracted the attention of the federal prosecutors who quickly drawn the case.

However, they dropped it last month.

Ultimately, the government lost confidence in the credibility of her key witness of the prosecutor, who admitted in a pre -judicial meeting that, according to court records, she had lying to investigators in all of its earlier statements. Other inconsistencies complicit the case that depended on the word of a recognized public prosecutor.

Gardner rejected a comment through his lawyer.

“Mr. Gardner has no bad will to the alleged victim,” said lawyer David Little. “We are grateful and he is certainly grateful that she finally reported and clarified part of her false representations towards the law enforcement authorities. And Mr. Gardner is looking forward to going forward and putting this situation behind.”

An accused man accuses

Gardner is a native of Tampa who played as a young man in the Little League in Belmont Heights. In 1984 he was drawn in by the Chicago Cubs and played four seasons in the small leagues, while he spent the offseason study on Tampa College.

However, he is the best known for the shattering history of his illegal conviction in a rape by West Virginia from 1987. This case depended on the wrong statements of a blood analyst. The public prosecutor also did not have to disclose laboratory reports in which someone else had committed the crime.

Gardner was relieved in 2016 after 27 years of prison. He became a motivating speaker and later married Leslie Abram's Gardner, a federal judge who is the sister of Stacey Abrams, the nationally recognized democratic activist for the voting rights.

In November 2023, Gardner was back in his hometown and lived in the Renaissance Tampa International Plaza Hotel.

The police were called there early one morning after a young woman said several people that someone tried to rape her.

Later she told the police that she walked the Fowler Avenue hours earlier when Gardner drove next to her in a black Cadillac -Suv. He asked if she wanted to “relax” and whether she “wanted to do something for some money”, she said, according to court records.

She learned that he lived in a “beautiful hotel” and “wanted to take photos for social media,” the records said. She denied that discussions about sex were spoken in the SUV, it says in records. She agreed to “hang out,” she said, but claimed that she told him that she was 16 and would not do anything sexual.

They later went to his hotel.

In his hotel room, the girl said, saw Gardner away and talked to her. At some point, she said Gardner put a 100 dollar bill in her pocket and asked if she would work with sex files, according to court files. At first she agreed, she said, said Gardner that she changed her opinion after the encounter had become physical.

She said Gardner got angry and told her to go. There was a loud argument. When she shouted at him, Gardner put his hands around her neck, it says in the court files. She ran out of the room and started beating the doors. A hotel guest brought her to the lobby where the police were called.

When the officials spoke to the girl, Gardner called the reception and said he wanted to tell his side of history. He claimed that he met the girl in the lobby and she followed him back to his room, according to court records. He said he believed that she was an “escort” and told her that he wanted nothing to do with her. He claimed that she had become angry.

Gardner was arrested for human trafficking and other charges. Within a few weeks, the federal prosecutor took the case and brought him to a Grand jury that gave back an indictment of a minor.

The case becomes cloudy

Court files find that the male DNA of The Girl did not match him in the night of Gardner's arrest. There was little other physical evidence.

Gardner's defense tried to present evidence that the girl was involved in sex work. They claimed that “they got a pattern of lying about their age against unsuspecting men,” says recordings.

The defense denied that the girl Gardner ever said she was a minor. He claimed he asked if she was over 18 years old and she replied “yes”.

Although the girl's girl for the first time refused that she had ever accepted money for sex, she later admitted to catching up men in the North Nebraska Avenue in Tampa, according to court files.

The defense received data worth two mobile phones that the girl used.

A phone contained records of more than 4,000 text messages. More than 95% of this news were discussions with various men about the exchange of money for sex. They showed a pattern when she turned directly to men she had met at dating apps. She often sent them sexual photos of herself, it says in the newspaper.

Gardner's defense identified eight cases in which she wrongly told the men she was between 18 and 22 years old. Hours before she met Gardner, she wrote an SMS with another man and discussed various sex files in return for money.

A judge made an application from prosecutors to prevent evidence of preventing the girl from being involved in prostitution. The government also noticed an SMS that she sent to a friend after Gardner's arrest, which agreed with what she told the police.

“A man just suffocated me as if I tried to kill myself,” she wrote, according to court records.

But there was more the defense that seemed to reduce her credibility.

In the months after Gardner's arrest, the girl was appointed victim in two other sex cases. In both cases, the police arrested men, of whom they said they had requested them from North Nebraska Avenue.

In April 2024, the girl went to Tikkok “to boast of her role in the arrest of three men”, including Gardner, according to court files.

In response to a comment from a viewer, the girl said that she had pending cases at the Florida Department of Children and Family because of her participation in “prostitution activities” in Nebraska Avenue, according to the records. She said she got “money” from the men and emphasized that she did not see herself as a “snitch”.

Finally, the prosecutors decided not to officially charge the other two men, as court files. Neither was charged before a federal court.

But the case of the Federal Sex Trade against Gardner continued.

His defenders argued at a time that he was selectively prosecuted because of his high profile and its breed – Gardner is black; The other two men who were arrested were white.

The public prosecutor's office denied this accusation. A judge denied the defense's application to dismiss the case for these reasons.

An attempt should begin this month.

At the end of April, deputy US lawyer Courtney Derry asked a judge to reject the case. In a advance meeting with prosecutors and law enforcement agencies, the girl admitted to lying in her previous statements, the prosecutor wrote.

The girl said she never said Gardner that she was 16 years old. She preferred to told him that she was 18 years old. She said she lied because she was angry that Gardner suffocated her.

The government did not allow the government to be able to prove their case.

“The evidence,” Derry wrote, “not enough to maintain a conviction based on the credibility of the victim.”