Lamont H. Garrison
#42689-083
Federal Sentence: 19 years
Offense: Powder cocaine (10 kg) and crack cocaine conspiracy (500 g)
Priors: None
Date of Sentencing: 10/16/98
Date of Birth: 4/5/73
Projected Release Date: 7/08/2015
Lawrence B. Garrison
#42784-084
Federal Sentence: 15 years
Offense: Powder cocaine (10 kg) and crack cocaine
conspiracy (500 g)
Priors: None
Date of Sentencing: 10/16/98
Date of Birth: 4/5/73
Projected Release Date: 2/08/2012
Nature of Offense: The proprietor of an auto body shop in Maryland, was arrested as a major player in a 20-person powder and crack cocaine operation. To reduce his sentence, he implicated others in the conspiracy. Two of them were twin brothers Lawrence and Lamont Garrison. The shop ownder testified that he supplied the Garrisons with one to two kilos of cocaine every week for 10 weeks in 1996 and again in 1997. Other conspirators soon followed, testifying that they too had witnessed some of these transactions.
According to Lawrence and Lamont, their contact with the shop owner was solely for his business. A mechanic was performing extensive work on their uncle’s car. The mechanic’s phone wasn’t working, so they would call his adjacent auto body shop, and he would hand the phone to the mechanic. The twins’ mother and uncle both confirm this since they also called about the car.
There were no drugs, drug paraphernalia, or other evidence of drugs found on the Garrisons or in their house. There was never any record of them selling drugs, other than testimonies from the members in the conspiracy. And unlike the other defendants, no proof exists that Lawrence or Lamont “derived money and other benefits” from two years of dealing drugs. In fact, both brothers were living in their mother’s house and owed thousands of dollars in college loans: Lamont's bill alone totaled $40,000.
Sure of their innocence, the Garrisons went to trial. They did not have enough money to hire one lawyer, let alone two, so they both settled with court appointed attorneys who, according to their mother, “were relaxed with the case” and “fell asleep during the trial.” The twins’ mother reports how the lawyers failed to gather key information that would have disproved the government’s only other bit of evidence against Lawrence and Lamont: phone records. The government argued the brothers couldn’t have merely been calling Abea about the car because they called too frequently, sometimes at strange hours, and on Abea’s cell phone and pager, not his business phone. With what they consider an inadequate defense, a jury found the twins guilty.
Sentences of Others Involved: The shopowner (and target of the investigation) gained tremendously from implicating Lawrence and Lamont: he only received three years in prison even though he was heavily involved in the cocaine operation.
Personal Background: Lamont and Lawrence were arrested just months after their graduation from Howard University. Both had worked part-time for five years to pay their tuition, and both were excellent students who were planning to become lawyers. At the time of his arrest, Lamont was working full-time as a juvenile counselor in Maryland, and both he and his brother had previously worked at the Department of Energy and the Department of Justice.
The Garrisons' friends, family, and teachers were all shocked when “the twins” were not acquitted of the charges. Everyone who knew them was positive that Lawrence and Lamont were never involved with drugs or crime. A family friend who has known the brothers for years wrote to their judge, “They would not have risked all they had worked so hard for, or their futures, on some immediate and temporary gratification. These boys are not the type and were not raised that way.”
Compiled from inmate information, PSR, and The Hilltop 10/30/987/29/99 dl