Thread by @SomeBitchIIKnow

Are you wondering what came of this dig? Let me lay it out for you:

Last Friday, a man named Jimmie Gardner, the brother-in-law of Stacey Abrams, was arrested in Tampa, Florida on charges of human trafficking, lascivious touching of a minor, and battery.

On Saturday, 11-18-23, a judge "set his bond at $500,000 despite his attorney, Jeff Brown, being present to argue that Gardner is not a threat to the community."

"He played baseball out of here, he's well known here, he was down here as a motivational speaker for a seminar."

Gardner was in Tampa to give a speech for the 20th anniversary of the Florida Innocence Project.

Five hours after Jimmie Gardner gave a speech about prison reform & wrongful incarceration to a nonprofit he sits on the board of in another state, he was arrested and charged with human trafficking after trying to pay for sex with a 16-year-old and choking her after an argument.

Across the web, almost every article relating to Gardner, as well as his numerous social media profiles and speaking engagement booking platforms, Jimmie's story is obfuscated to the point of comedy.

Take for example, this article from June 15, 2022 from WALB10:

"Jimmie C. Gardner was a former professional baseball player for the Chicago Cubs. Gardner played in the minor leagues from 1984 to 1988, but during his season in 1987, his world turned upside down."

"At the time, Gardner was playing with the Charleston Wheelers in Charleston, West Virginia when a couple of sexual assault cases with two women surfaced. He was later charged with the crime along with robbery, burglary and assault during the commission of a felony."

In a profile on Engage, which is a hub meant to "find, book, & experience the industry's best speakers," you can find a profile for Jimmie. (As of the morning of 11-21-2023.)

In this seven-paragraph profile, two paragraphs stand out.

"Two years later in 1989, Jimmie was back in Tampa when he was arrested, extradited to West Virginia, and charged with sexual assault, robbery, burglary, and assault during the commission of a felony."

A separate Squarespace site for Gardner tells an analogous tale:

"In 1989, while still working towards his business degree, Jimmie was arrested and charged with two separate counts of robbery and sexual assault; as well as burglary and assault-during-the-commission-of-a-felony."

There's a slightly awkward problem with the evasive phrasing of this:

In 1989, Gardner was already serving a six-year prison sentence for threatening a hotel room full of people with a gun.

November 1, 1987 — Holdup ends when suspect gets shot — Tampa Bay Times

So when Gardner was sentenced in 1990, it was due to a matching fingerprint that was taken from his gun in the crime in Tampa.

March 6, 1990 — The Times

March 6, 1990 — The Pantagraph

An article from 2016 gives us a great overview for where to dig next:

Gardner claims that because testimony from a disgraced serologist was used, he is innocent. But...

"Kanawha County prosecutors opted to retry Gardner, saying that DNA evidence found inside the victim did, in fact, match Gardner and so did the fingerprint.

Prosecutors told the judge that Zakaib did order new DNA testing in 1996 and that it did not clear Gardner."

"As a matter of fact, they determined, statistically, that there is a one in 13,500,000 chance that someone else would have had that DNA profile," prosecutor Don Morris said during a hearing earlier this year, before it was announced they were not proceeding with the case.

"Just days before the trial was set to start, however, prosecutors dropped the charges, saying that the memories of those who worked the case nearly 30 years ago were so faded and unreliable that they couldn't proceed."

But this is not really a "total exoneration."

In 1994 and 1995 Kanawha County followed through with obtaining new DNA samples.

July 17, 1994 — Prisoners say tests could set them free — Lansing State Journal

April 23, 1995 — DNA Tests Ordered In Rape Conviction

"Kanawha County Prosecutor Chuck Miller said that tracking down witnesses and officers in the case proved extremely difficult. Also, the victims in the case passed away. The charges were dropped."

TLDR: Jimmie Gardner has made a career out of proclaiming his innocence but has a track record that suggests otherwise. The DNA samples did not clear him, according to many reports, but too much time had simply passed and too many people had died/retired to follow through.

Now that new allegations are on the table, and Gardner has someone trying to erase his digital footprint, what else might there be to discover?

I aim to find out.

Thanks.

Sources and links: bigdigenergy.info/BDE262