20-05-2025
Tampa federal prosecutors drop sex trafficking case against exonerated man
TAMPA — When Jimmie Gardner was arrested 18 months ago on human trafficking allegations, Tampa authorities were quick to tout his past wrongful imprisonment and his relationship to a Democratic politician.
Police and prosecutors accused Gardner, 58, of offering to pay a 16-year-old girl for sex, then choking her when she resisted his advances. News of his arrest became a minor political sensation. It also caught the attention of federal prosecutors, who quickly scooped up the case.
Last month, though, they dropped it.
Ultimately, the government lost confidence in the credibility of their key witness, the accuser, who admitted in a pretrial meeting that she'd lied in all her previous statements to investigators, according to court records. Other inconsistencies further complicated the case, which hinged on the word of a girl prosecutors acknowledged was troubled.
Gardner, through his attorney, declined to comment.
'Mr. Gardner has no ill will toward the alleged victim,' said attorney David Little. 'We are thankful, and he is certainly thankful, that she finally came forward and clarified part of her misrepresentations to law enforcement. And Mr. Gardner looks forward to moving forward and putting this situation behind him.'
Gardner is a Tampa native who as a young man played in the storied Belmont Heights Little League. In 1984, he was drafted by the Chicago Cubs and played four seasons in the minor leagues while spending the offseason studying business at Tampa College.
He is best known, though, for the harrowing story of his wrongful conviction in a 1987 West Virginia rape. That case hinged on false testimony from a blood analyst. Prosecutors were also faulted for failing to disclose lab reports that indicated someone else committed the crime.
Gardner was exonerated in 2016 after 27 years in prison. He became a motivational speaker and later married Leslie Abrams Gardner, a federal judge who is the sister of Stacey Abrams, the nationally recognized Democratic Georgia voting rights activist.
In November 2023, Gardner was back in his hometown, staying at the Renaissance Tampa International Plaza Hotel.
Police were called there early one morning after a young woman told several people that someone tried to rape her.
She later told police that hours earlier she'd been walking along Fowler Avenue when Gardner pulled up alongside her in a black Cadillac SUV. He asked if she wanted to 'chill,' and if she wanted to 'do something for some money,' she said, according to court records.
She learned he was staying at a 'nice hotel' and 'wanted to take pictures for social media,' the records state. She denied there was any talk in the SUV about sex, records state. She agreed to 'hang out,' she said, but claimed she told him she was 16 and wouldn't do anything sexual.
They later went to his hotel.
In his hotel room, the girl said, Gardner watched TV and made conversation with her. At some point, she said Gardner put a $100 bill in her pocket and asked if she would engage in sex acts, court records state. She initially agreed, she said, but told Gardner she'd changed her mind after the encounter became physical.
She said Gardner became angry and told her to leave. A loud argument ensued. As she yelled at him, the girl said, Gardner placed his hands around her neck, court records state. She ran out of the room and began banging on doors. A hotel guest took her to the lobby, where police were called.
As officers talked to the girl, Gardner phoned the front desk and said he wanted to tell his side of the story. He claimed he met the girl in the lobby and she followed him back to his room, according to court records. He said he believed she was an 'escort,' and told her he wanted nothing to do with her. He claimed it was she who became angry.
Gardner was arrested on human trafficking and other charges. Within weeks, federal prosecutors picked up the case, bringing it to a grand jury that returned an indictment for sex trafficking of a minor.
Court records note that male DNA obtained from the girl the night of Gardner's arrest did not match him. There was little other physical evidence.
Gardner's defense sought to introduce evidence that the girl was involved in sex work. They asserted that 'she engaged in a pattern of lying about her age to unsuspecting men,' records state.
The defense disputed that the girl ever told Gardner she was a minor. He claimed he asked if she was over 18 and she responded 'yes.'
Although the girl first denied to police that she'd ever accepted money for sex, she later admitted to soliciting men on North Nebraska Avenue in Tampa, according to court records.
The defense obtained a month's worth of data from two cellphones the girl used.
One phone held records of more than 4,000 text messages. More than 95% of those messages were conversations with various men about exchanging money for sex, according to a court paper filed by the defense. They showed a pattern of her reaching out directly to men she met on dating apps. She frequently sent them sexual photos of herself, the paper states.
Gardner's defense identified eight instances in which she falsely told men she was between 18 and 22. Hours before she met Gardner, she texted with another man, discussing various sex acts in exchange for money.
A judge granted a request from prosecutors to bar evidence that the girl was involved in prostitution. The government also noted one text message she sent to a friend after Gardner's arrest, which was consistent with what she told police.
'Some man just choked me up like tried to kill me,' she wrote, according to court records.
But there was more the defense obtained that seemed to diminish her credibility.
In the months after Gardner's arrest, the girl was named as a victim in two other sex cases. In both, police arrested men they said had solicited her on North Nebraska Avenue.
In April 2024, the girl went on TikTok 'to boast about her role in the arrest of three men,' including Gardner, according to court records.
In response to a comment from a viewer, the girl said she had pending cases with the Florida Department of Children and Families due to her involvement in 'prostitution activities' on Nebraska Avenue, the records state. She said she was 'getting money' from the men and emphasized that she did not consider herself 'a snitch.'
State prosecutors ultimately decided not to formally charge the two other men, court records show. Neither was charged in federal court.
But the federal sex trafficking case against Gardner continued.
His defense attorneys at one point argued that he was being selectively prosecuted because of his high profile and his race — Gardner is Black; the other two men who were arrested were white.
Prosecutors denied that accusation. A judge denied the defense's request to dismiss the case on those grounds.
A trial was scheduled to begin this month.
Then, in late April, Assistant U.S. Attorney Courtney Derry asked a judge to dismiss the case. In a pretrial meeting with prosecutors and law enforcement, the girl admitted to lying in her previous statements, the prosecutor wrote.
The girl said she never told Gardner she was 16. Rather, she told him she was 18. She said she lied because she was angry that Gardner had choked her.
The change in her testimony and 'other inconsistencies' left the government unable to prove its case.
'The evidence,' Derry wrote, 'is insufficient to sustain a conviction based on the credibility of the victim.'
