Federal Judge Travis McDonough on Tuesday ruled that Corrie Gillispie would not be taking the witness stand in his sex trafficking case because he would not agree to comply with the rules of court.
Gillispie has acted up each time he has been brought to court for his sex trafficking trial and has spent most of the case in another area of the Federal Courthouse on Georgia Avenue.
He repeated says he wants to represents himself and says of court-appointed attorney Clay Whittaker, "This guy's not my attorney."
Attorney Whittaker said he had strongly advised Gillispie not to testify. He said he should not be allowed just to "speechify" before the jury. He said the jury, after hearing Gillispie, might conclude that "he is insane."
Prosecutor Jay Woods said the defendant should be allowed to have his say, noting that is an essential right under the Constitution.
The case was set to go to the jury after final arguments from both sides.
On Monday, a former prostitute for Gillispie said a church raised funds to pay for her to get one of his "Tyme" tattoos on her covered up.
The woman, who said she kept going back to work for Gillispie periodically for over a decade, said she was always careful not to cross him. She said, "I did what was expected of me so I didn't have to suffer any consequences." She said Gillispie taught that for those who bore his tattoo "it was like being in the mob."
Witnesses said Gillispie used variations of the nickname "Tyme" and liked to have his prostitutes marked with them.
The woman said she got her Tyme tattoo covered with a new tattoo.
She told the jury that once when she left Gillispie and went home briefly, she returned to Chattanooga and was walking along Willow Street with another woman. She said Gillispie drove up in a van and hollered that she was wearing his tattoo and was his. She said she went back once again.
She said the last time she went back there were four other prostitutes at a house in East Lake. Some of their nicknames were Happy, Baby Doll and Honeycomb.
She said when she first started working for Gillispie she would be paid $30, $40 or $50 per customer. She said later it went up to $300 and above. But she said the girls would not get any of the money except small amounts for essentials.
Gillispie would not let the girls take time off when they were in their menstrual periods, it was testified. She said he would "put sponges in to hold in the blood."
The witness said the girls initially worked the streets, but later had clients come to them or made calls to their locations. She said they would work out of town, going as far as Blue Ridge, Ga.
For a time, she said they operated out of the Stay Inn at Dalton, Ga. She said while there she made one of her escapes. She said she went to a man staying in the next room. For a sexual favor, she said he agreed to take her to Walmart, where she called her grandmother to come get her.
But she returned and found that Gillispie had set up a studio at a storefront in Fort Oglethorpe. She said, "I went back to selling my body."
In October 2015, the prostitute said she got away again. She said she did so when others left the East Lake house. She said normally the front and back doors would be locked from the outside. She said on this occasion one of the other girls left a door open.
She said she got help from an agency, who took her to a halfway house for prostitutes in Nashville. She said she spent a night there, then moved in with a friend.
All three prostitutes who testified for the government were in jail clothes and incarcerated for one reason or another.