Ex-UGA student charged in beating of Clemson visitor

ATHENS, Ga. - University of Georgia police took out warrants Friday charging a former UGA student with false imprisonment and battery in connection with a Clemson University student's complaint he was held captive and beaten in a fraternity house.

Although others were in the basement of Chi Phi during the alleged beating early Sunday morning, UGA police identified only one offender - 23-year-old Gene Whitner Milner III, an on-and-off student who has run afoul of the law several times and last was enrolled at the university for spring semester.

Milner, who not is a Chi Phi member, is charged in warrants with felony false imprisonment and misdemeanor battery, UGA police said.

"He was at the (fraternity) and committed the crime at the property - that's all I will verify," UGA police Chief Jimmy Williamson said.

"There were other people present and it appeared they were not involved," Williamson said. "I'm not going to go into what they saw or what they said."

Police began investigating the case when the 18-year-old Clemson University student, in town for the Georgia-Auburn football game, ran into the street about 3:20 a.m. Sunday, yelling for help outside the fraternity house.

The officer who found the student reported he was intoxicated, incoherent and crying but also was cut and bruised, and his clothes were wet and dirty.

It seemed clear he was fleeing from someone as he ran from the vicinity of the fraternity, Williamson said.

Milner told the Banner-Herald he just happened to be in the area when the Clemson student ran into the street, and he gave a statement to an officer.

Milner has a series of alcohol-related arrests that date to 2004, and a Clarke County Superior Court judge once banned him from the county.

Police responded to several calls at a house his family owned on Riverhill Drive, where UGA freshman Lewis Rockwell Fish partied in January 2006, hours before he died in a UGA dormitory from a mixture of alcohol, cocaine and heroin.

Police brought alcohol and drug charges against Milner and six others as part of an investigation into Fish's death. Prosecutors dropped marijuana possession charges against Milner because he was in Colorado at the time, already banned from the county.

In December 2006, Milner was charged with providing alcohol to minors, violating a county noise ordinance, obstructing a police officer, public drunkenness and disorderly conduct after a loud party at the Riverhill Drive house. He pleaded no contest and was fined, placed on two years of probation and ordered to perform 40 hours of community service.

Milner re-enrolled at UGA for the fall 2006 semester and enrolled again for the spring 2007 semester, according to UGA records.