The University Police Department issued a felony arrest warrant for former University student Gene Whitner Milner III in relation to a false imprisonment/battery incident reported last weekend on campus.

Milner was identified as a suspect during the course of the investigation, and UGA police stated there was sufficient probable cause to obtain one felony false imprisonment arrest warrant and one misdemeanor battery arrest warrant for Milner. The warrants were issued on Friday.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported Saturday that Milner’s defense attorney Manny Arora said Milner would turn himself in Monday.

Milner, 23, has been in trouble with Athens-Clarke County Police in the past, having faced several drug and alcohol related charges. In January 2006, a Clarke County court banned Milner from Athens-Clarke County and placed him on six months probation. Three weeks later he was charged as part of an investigation into the death of University student Lewis Fish, who died in his Russell Hall dorm room from an overdose of alcohol, cocaine and heroin. The charges against Milner in that case were dropped.

The recent charges stem from an incident early Sunday in which an 18-year-old Clemson University student told police he was held against his will and assaulted in the basement of the Chi Phi fraternity.

The complainant, who was visiting the University for the football game between Georgia and Auburn, told police he was held after an altercation at Roadhouse bar.

According to the report, an officer saw the complainant run into the middle of Lumpkin Street in front of the Chi Phi house at 3:22 a.m., yelling for someone to help him. When the officer helped him out of the road, the complainant was crying and appeared intoxicated and incoherent. The officer said he appeared to have urinated on himself based on the strong odor of urine coming from him.

The complainant told the officer people had “messed him up,” and he had multiple cuts; a swollen right eye; wet, dirty clothes and said he had shoulder pain.

Milner was a student at the University last spring, and during his time in Athens has faced several run-ins with area law enforcement.

He was first arrested in Athens in April 2004, before he was a student at UGA. He was charged with underage possession of alcohol, giving false information to police, possession of a fake ID and public intoxication. He was arrested in September 2004 and again in August 2005 on alcohol-related charges while a UGA student, and was ordered to wear an ankle bracelet to detect alcohol from perspiration.

A noise ordinance violation proved his undoing in late 2005, and a court ordered Milner banned from ACC.

Trouble found Milner just a few weeks later, when a party at Milner’s house at 555 Riverhill Drive in Athens was one of the last places Fish was before he was found dead in his dorm room. After a search of Milner’s house as part of the investigation into Fish’s death, Milner and six others were charged with various alcohol and drug-related charges. The marijuana possession charges against Milner were dropped because he was in Colorado at the time of the party after being barred from ACC.

The most recent arrest of Milner occurred late December 2006, after a party at 555 Riverhill Drive brought charges against him of providing alcohol to minors, obstruction of a police officer, public intoxication, disorderly conduct and violating the county noise ordinance. He pled no contest to the charges, and was sentenced to two years probation, 40 hours of community service, and two years of probation in an Athens-Clarke drug court program.

Milner was suspended from the University following the incident, but in March 2007, a three-member University Judiciary panel cleared Milner of alcohol-related misconduct from the December party, but ordered him to write a 1,000 word essay for disorderly conduct. He was eligible to re-enroll for classes immediately.