NEW ORLEANS, La.–He had a gold star high school football coaching career but he went up the river on child molestation charges. Now Dwight Bowling is trying to get out of the federal pen, again. He says, this time, that his lawyers did a bad job on his defense.
Bowling, a former 20 plus year coach at Smithville High School, and later Sulligent, Ala., got 25 years in 2011 on two counts of enticement of a child and jury tampering after he was caught with a 13-year-old boy in Mississippi, while heading to Alabama. That boy accused him of bad touching and that led to an investigation that uncovered at least four victims and ended up with Bowling pleading guilty to two federal counts of taking children across state lines for sexual purposes.
The feds also got him on tape asking one of the victims to lie to the court.
He tried an appeal in 2011, but it was denied.
In his current attempt to get out, he is saying his counsel was ineffective and let the judge punish him too harshly. He claims he got a 300 month sentence when the guidelines called for 135 to 168 months.
He is also asking the judge to vacate, or let him out of jail, while his new lawyer prepares for an evidentiary hearing.
