Torrance Hill Testifies in Shellnut Case

Torrance Hill, the reputed drug kingpin was dressed in orange and white prison scrubs and shackled as he was led into the courtroom in the federal building in downtown Columbus.

Now 34, Hill told jurors he dropped out high school in the 11th grade and soon began selling drugs. Initially he sold $20 crack cocaine rocks and graduated to selling kilos of coke at $18,000 a pop. He said he had suppliers in Memphis, Atlanta and Mexico. By the time of his arrest, he said he was making $9 million a month selling cocaine. That stunned even Judge Clay Land who leaned over and asked how much.

Assistant US Attorney Carlton (Charlie) Bourne questioned Torrance Hill. Jurors heard that he paid Mark Shelnutt $250,000 to get him out of jail on bond. *That he felt Mark Shelnutt ruined a deal he tried to make with authorities in Tennessee saying Shelnutt, his attorney at the time, asked for immunity for himself.
*That once Torrance Hill made bond, he went back to selling drugs because his family was threatened by the mexican drug cartel to whom he owed money, and that when authorities seized $141,000 from his Whisperwood apartment in Columbus, Hill said Shelnutt was angry saying *that money could have been his.

Under cross examination, defense attorney Tom Withers managed to get out of Hill that the convicted drug dealer felt betrayed by Shelnutt, with whom he had once been very close. He said federal authorities played a recording for him. On it he said he heard Shelnutt ask how he, meaning Shelnutt, could be involved in a drug conspiracy when it was him that gave them Torrance Hill. They heard repeated phone call recordings on which Hill said Shelnutt had done nothing wrong and he wasn’t going to make the feds happy by saying that he did. They also heard that in Hill’s opinion, Shelnutt was on the fast track to becoming a judge, something he heard, and that’s why the feds were going after him.

Also on cross, Tom Withers tried to paint a picture for jurors of a Torrance Hill who grew tired of being in solitary for 23 to 24 hours a day behind bars for 22 months..someone who was desperate to do anything to keep his girlfriend and his cousin from going to jail and the feds held the key.

Joanne Strickland, a secretary at Shelnutt’s Law firm took the stand after Hill. It was into her account the government says Shelnutt funneled $7,000. She says when she was subpoenaed, Shelnutt told her it was a $5,000 loan for her daughter’s wedding. She told jurors quote, “this was not a lone.“ End quote.