Axis man charged following attack on former officer

Thursday, November 30, 2006

By BRENDAN KIRBY Staff Reporter

Declaring that a decade-old arrest had ruined his life, a Mobile man last month attacked and bloodied a former Saraland police officer, according to a federal indictment handed down this week. A federal grand jury in Mobile indicted James Bruce Corley, 37, of Axis on charges of assaulting a federal law enforcement officer and attempted murder of a federal law enforcement officer. He is scheduled to be arraigned next week.

Former Saraland Officer Barry Foley was a member of an FBI drug task force at the time he arrested Corley in 1996. According to a criminal complaint, Corley attacked Foley on Oct. 26 at a bar in Axis called the Feed Store. Foley said Wednesday that before he was attacked, Corley accused him of ruining his life because he was not able to hunt with his son. Convicted felons are barred by law from possessing firearms.

The affidavit states that Foley, who was assigned to the federal task force in the mid-1990s, arrested Corley in May 1996 on drug charges. Corley pleaded guilty in 1998 to first-degree possession of marijuana and served 90 days in jail, according to court records. Foley, who left the Saraland Police Department in 1997 and now works at the Shell chemical refinery in Saraland, said in an interview that Corley waited for him outside the bar after a confrontation in the bathroom and then bashed him from behind with a club or a bar.

"I've never been hit that hard in my life," he said. Foley said he awoke on the ground, bloody and wet from rain. His vision blurred, Foley said that he managed to get to his truck and drive home. The criminal complaint states that he later required 60 stitches for deep cuts to his face and head.

Defense attorney Dom Soto called the attempted murder charge "kind of a stretch" and said there is little to support the allegation that his client was trying to kill Foley. He said the two had an altercation after a chance meeting at the bar. "They're saying he stalked him and all this. ... None of the facts are going to support that when we get to trial," he said.

Law enforcement officers originally charged Corley in state court with second-degree assault, a Class C felony punishable by a maximum of 10 years in prison. At most, Soto said, the allegations support nothing more serious than that.

"I think when push comes to shove, we'll prove that," he said. After a Mobile County District Court judge originally gave Corley a $10,000 bond, federal authorities filed the criminal complaint. A federal magistrate judge ordered Corley to remain jailed pending trial. Soto has appealed that decision to a U.S. District Court judge. Foley said he had gone to the Feed Store that night to meet a couple of co-workers who did not show up.

He said a waitress asked him if he was a police officer and that he responded that he used to be. He said he then went into the bathroom and found himself confronted by an angry man who followed him inside, hands balled into fists. "He looked to be the angriest person I'd ever seen anywhere," he said. Foley said he at first did not recognize the bald-headed man with a goatee. "The last time I had seen him was 10 years ago, and he had a full head of hair and no facial hair," he said.

But Foley said he remembered Corley after he discussed details of the case. According to Foley, Corley had agreed to have a 5-pound package of marijuana delivered to his home. Federal postal inspectors intercepted the package and set up a "controlled delivery." Foley said Corley signed for the package using a phony name and then put it in a dryer in his backyard. Foley said he and his partner then made the arrest.

Foley said Corley eventually left the bar after the conversation in the bathroom. After about 10 or 15 minutes, he said he did too. As he was walking to his truck, he said, he heard someone walking on the gravel behind him and turned as his assailant was striking him. In his nine years of law enforcement, Foley said, no one had ever assaulted him or even threatened him after making an arrest.

If convicted, Corley faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison, although his actual punishment likely would be less under advisory sentencing guidelines.

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