The mayor of Thomson is back in business after a local jury found him not guilty Tuesday of supplying an inmate work crew with a bottle of gin.
Benji Cranford, 52, had been suspended from office by a review panel after a grand jury indicted him in August for giving inmates contraband and attempting to commit a felony.
During the two-day trial, jurors repeatedly watched June video showing Cranford buying two bottles of liquor, then driving across the street and stopping his car at a spot where inmate laborers were approaching.
The guard supervising the laborers saw Cranford’s vehicle stop and grew immediately suspicious, photographing his vehicle and finding a bottle of gin in a ditch.
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GBI Special Agent Kris Lapham testified the video showed Cranford pulling one bottle out of the store bag then placing it on the ground. Agents were unable to find a connection between Cranford and the state prisoners, he testified, but were unable to rule one out.
Defense attorney Keith Johnson called the investigation into question, asking why the GBI hadn’t investigated another man’s earlier purchase of an identical bottle of gin at the same store, and why agents had arrested Cranford at a city council meeting in full view of the public.
Lapham testified Cranford hadn’t returned the agent’s calls, so they went to the meeting and that the mayor had a known habit of buying alcohol for friends.
Cranford, who was elected last year, testified on his own behalf but said he recalled very little about the day in question. He testified he probably visited the liquor store, Renfy’s, a couple times a week and likely had been drinking the day of the incident.
Asked why he purchased the gin, Cranford said a doctor he recently went to Africa with had said it prevented malaria.
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Cranford’s explanation for pulling his SUV out of the store parking lot and across the street is that he was restarting the vehicle to reconnect a bluetooth device.
“Why I pulled to that side of the road, I don’t know,” Cranford said.
In closing arguments Tuesday, Johnson asked why Cranford would risk becoming a convicted felon to help a group of inmates he did not know. He said the inmate guard’s testimony had changed, from seeing Cranford place the bottle to merely seeing a car door open briefly.
Consequently, Thomson’s “duly-elected mayor is on trial because of an assumption,” Johnson said.
“Is this the kind of police work we’re going to honor and respect with a guilty verdict?” he asked.
In his closing, Toombs Circuit Assistant District Attorney Terry Lloyd questioned why Cranford would drive across the street to restart his car when he had the store parking lot to do it in.
Cranford may have been drunk, he said. It’s not a defense, but, “it may explain why he did something so stupid,” Lloyd said.
“The mayor is the only one who bought a bottle of gin and drove directly across to that ditch,” he said.