A former high-ranking Atlanta police official has filed a sex discrimination complaint against the Atlanta Police Department.

Former Maj. Cerelyn "C.J." Davis, who was demoted to lieutenant and then fired in June, accuses the department of disciplining her differently than a male officer who had a similar case but held on to his job, said her attorney, Mary Huber.

Both Davis and the male officer were charged with lying and failed lie-detector tests, Huber said. They both then got private lie-detector tests, passed them and presented the new findings to Atlanta Police Chief Richard Pennington, Huber contends.

The male officer kept his job; Davis did not, Huber said.

An Atlanta police spokeswoman, Sgt. Lisa Keyes, said she was unaware of Davis' complaint and could not comment on it.

Davis, Sgt. Tonya Crane and crime analyst Randolph Ory were fired or quit in connection with the alleged sex crimes of Crane's husband.

Federal authorities indicted the husband, Terrill Marion Crane, in November on charges of producing child pornography after Atlanta police provided them with sexual photos of Crane and underage girls. But Atlanta police were given the photos in 1999 and bungled the investigation.

An investigation by the city's Law Department concluded that: Davis told two detectives not to look into the case, Tonya Crane burned sexually explicit photos of her husband and Ory, a close friend of Terrill Crane's, knew about some of Crane's sexual exploits.

Davis' complaint was filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and will be heard during an Aug. 26 hearing with the city's Civil Service Board, which has the power to reinstate a city employee to his or her job.

Huber said Davis also has two other issues in her complaint: that two detectives assigned to the Crane investigation should have been disciplined and that lie-detector tests violate EEOC regulations.