A former Turner County deputy is free for the first time in 10 months after being found not guilty of rape charges stemming from an incident here last August.

It took jurors three hours to acquit Jason Walker of rape and false imprisonment charges after a three-day trial that ended late last week. He was convicted of a misdemeanor count of battery and sentenced to time served.

Walker’s attorney, W. Dow Bonds, a former assistant district attorney in the Tift Judicial Circuit, said that the verdict comes as vindication for a man vilified by his charges.

Bonds said that the past 10 months have been rough for Walker, who has seen his name ruined in headlines and had to endure the death of his 10-year-old son, who was killed in a storm in Sycamore on April 8.

Walker was arrested by a SWAT team last August after being accused of raping a 21-year-old Armstrong Atlantic student. Walker was twice denied bond and remained in jail until his trial began on June 13.

Bonds said that rumors of Walker’s involvement in a triple homicide in Turner County worked against him in the bond phase of his prosecution, even though Walker had been cleared by the GBI as a suspect in the murders.

“At one point during the bond proceedings a Garden City captain stood up and told the judge that my client was a suspect in a triple homicide case in Turner County,” Bonds said. “And once that got into the judge’s mind, even though it wasn’t true, you just can’t un-ring that bell.”

“Mr. Walker was one of many people interviewed during the course of that investigation and has been cleared by the GBI,” Bonds said.

The bodies of Turner County tax assessor Tommy Joe Wideman, 48; his wife, Deborah Wheeler Wideman, 48, and their daughter, Melissa Wideman, 20, who was seven months pregnant with Abbie Alexis Wideman, were found in their burned-out home off Georgia Highway 112, three miles east of Rebecca on March 22, 2002. The fire was ruled arson but the Widemans’ official cause of death was from gunshots from a .38 caliber pistol.

According to GBI Special Agent-in-Charge Gary Rothwell, the Wideman case is still considered an ongoing investigation.