All may be fair in love and war, but Brent McCormick (age 50) is claiming foul play and has been trying to implicate his former live-in girlfriend in some sort of conspiracy to plant evidence that led to his anabolic steroid possession conviction in early November.
All indications are the judge (and jury) in the McCormick trial aren’t buying it.
The Washington County Sheriff’s Department had been investigating McCormick for some time, telling the jury in this trial that they had received an anonymous tip that McCormick was not only a user of anabolic steroids but also was a part-time peddler of these controlled substances as well.
The case looking into McCormick began in the middle of 2017. It didn’t take long at all for the sheriffs to uncover evidence confirming the fact that McCormick was a steroid abuser, especially after they executed a search warrant on property owned by McCormick and uncovered vials of injectable anabolic steroids, boxes of syringes, and packaging that clearly outlined the drugs in question as controlled substances and anabolic steroids.
Sheriff deputies also uncovered a number of syringes that had already been used and almost entirely empty (but still containing banned substance) vials of Dragon Pharma anabolic steroids when they had searched garbage he threw out just a few short daysbefore the search warrant was executed.
The lawyer for Mr. McCormick presented his side of the story, contending that an ex-girlfriend of McCormick was behind the entire sting operation and that he had been a victim of an underground conspiracy led by a jilted lover.
McCormick stated that he had no point in time had used anabolic steroids, had absolutely no idea where though steroids had come from, and that they certainly weren’t his and he never purchased, possessed, or sold these banned substances. He further went on to say that his ex clearly broke into his home and planted the evidence, then set him up with the anonymous tip, all because they had broken up just a short while ago.
For a number of different reasons the jury in the steroid case just wasn’t buying the story that McCormick was trying to sell, and it only took them 30 minutes of deliberation to find him guilty. They throughout the conspiracy story wholesale, and sentencing is coming up in about a month or so.
Convictions of Class IV felony steroid possession can carry a penalty that goes to upwards of 24 months in jail and a fine of upwards of $10,000. In this specific situation, however, the chief deputy of the sheriff’s department has instead requested probation for Mr. McCormick – helping him to get off lightly.
This isn’t the only legal trouble that McCormick is dealing with, however.
While still awaiting trial for his steroid possession situation McCormick was arrested for suspicion of domestic violence that involved a firearm in the state of Ohio.
In October of 2018, in the lead up to that trial, McCormick was further charged with jury tampering during the selection process. Noticing that a pal of his had been called for jury duty in this situation, he fired off a message to that individual via Facebook and alerted him that he needed to be on the jury – something that the judge took very seriously, and something that will no doubt negatively impact his odds of receiving a lenient sentence should he be found guilty in this specific trial.
The legal troubles for Mr. McCormick are anything but far from over it is likely that he will be sentenced for his steroid case well before the domestic violence with a firearm trial gets underway. That sure isn’t going to help when it comes to sentencing that case, either.