A man representing himself on aggravated robbery charges told a Criminal Court jury on Tuesday that he was having sex at the time of the early morning holdup of the Mapco on Lee Highway on June 22, 2008.

The voluble Gary Dewayne Thompson also informed the jury about a string of prior assaults, an armed robbery when he was 19, that he was a promoter at a strip club near the Mapco and that he is a drug dealer.

Thompson has had disagreements with a string of lawyers and Judge Barry Steelman directed that the most recent one, John McDougal, sit in to assist the 32-year-old defendant. But Thompson has done most of the talking.

He told the jury in detail about his experience as a "gladiator" at the County Workhouse that he said led to a $30 million civil lawsuit and a $35,000 settlement. He said he got $25,000 of the payoff.

Thompson said CCA officers would send inmates that caused them trouble to his cell to be beat up.

He said one prisoner sent to his cell was threatening to whip him and came over and kicked his bunk. He said he got up and "gave it to him. I held him up at the door of the cell until they came to get him."

Thompson, whose nickname is "Thump," said the jail combat made the CCA officers laugh. "They humored themselves over it."

He said on another occasion he could hear on the workhouse radio officers bringing him another victim.

He told the jury, "I could hear the captain asking, 'Where's Thump's cell?' Tell him I'm going to bring one to him."

Thompson said the inmate was put into the two-man cell that was already occupied by him and another prisoner. He said, "They didn't even bring him a mattress."

He said he threw the new prisoner across the cell while the officers watched. But he said after they left, he tossed the man a blanket.

Thompson said, 'I had enough of that. I called my lawyer."

He said after the suit was filed by attorney Robin Flores that some CCA officers were fired and others suspended.

Thompson also claimed that while he was at the workhouse he had sex with female guards. He said that made the male guards mad.

Thompson told the jury he has four children, ranging in age from six months to 14. He said he had gone to Chattanooga State for two semesters to get a business degree, and he said while he was in prison earlier he got his GED, scoring the second highest grade in prison history.

He told of owning several cars, including a 1974 Impala that he fixed up at a cost of $12,000.

He said when he was 19 his sister's boyfriend had suggested that he "hit a lick." He said it was set up that he would rob a store where the girlfriend of the sister's boyfriend was working.

Thompson said he confessed to that crime, in which he got away with $160. He said authorities wound up charging him with three robberies, though he said he did only one. He said he pleaded guilty to all three because he was offered nine years. He said he was told he would get 12 years otherwise.

He got out of prison in February 2004 and was charged and convicted of another aggravated robbery, though that evidence was kept from the jury. Thompson spent 33 months in jail until a new trial was ordered and the case was then dismissed.

Thompson said he had been promoting adult entertainment at Diamonds and Lace and Babe's Sports Bar. He said he also sold drugs out of the Hickory Villa Apartments on Hickory Valley Road.

A woman testified earlier that she loaned her car to Thompson at the time of the holdup. Thompson denied using the woman's car and said she had come over to buy drugs from him.

He denied that clothes that had been shed by the robber along the side of Vance Road belonged to him. He said, "I wouldn't cut grass in those clothes."

He said he did not know how his DNA wound up on the clothes found by the road.

The clerk at the Mapco identified Thompson as the robber, but Thompson claimed he went into the store after the holdup and the clerk did not recognize him. He said the clerk told him he was not the robber and they "did high fives and hugged across the counter."

Thompson claimed he paid an investigator $300 to get a video of that alleged encounter with the clerk, but he never got it.