Forsyth deputy suspended over charges of sex while on duty

By Marcus K. Garner

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

A Forsyth County Sheriff’s deputy has been suspended three weeks for allegedly having sex with a woman while he was on duty.

Lt. Todd Maloney admitted to having an affair with the woman, who was on probation between May and September of last year, according to Forsyth Sheriff’s Office internal affairs documents obtained by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Maloney, who is married, was cited with neglect of duty and conduct unbecoming a sheriff’s deputy, among other violations, in a Dec. 27 letter relegating him to 120 hours of unpaid suspension and desk duty at the county jail.

“He violated policy,” sheriff’s office spokesman Capt. Tim House told the AJC. “We don’t condone that activity at all, and that’s why he was dealt with the way he was.”

In addition to having sex while in uniform and on duty, Maloney intervened when the woman filed a formal complaint against him – a complaint that she eventually rescinded, according to the documents.

According to the investigative report, the young woman stated that Maloney looked up her criminal record on his in-car computer in exchange for sexual favors. The two met last spring in her subdivision, where Maloney had gone to visit an off-duty colleague who was working security.

Both Maloney and the woman said the sex was consensual, according to the report, although there was some dispute about how many times and where.

While they agreed that at least two encounters occurred – once at her job on Veterans Memorial Drive in Cumming and another time in an incomplete subdivision off Peachtree Parkway – she claims they had sex “four or five times,” according to the report.

Maloney initially said he could remember only a single encounter at the Peachtree Parkway location – referred to in exchanged text messages as the “spot.” But he hedged, the report stated, when asked by investigators if there was a chance they could have had multiple liaisons there.

“He said he was going to say ‘yes, there could have been more than once,’” the report said.

Maloney denied, however, having sex inside or on the back of his patrol car, as the woman claimed in the complaint she filed on Nov. 4.

When the woman came to the sheriff’s office precinct to file the complaint, the deputy she responded to called Maloney – who was on duty – only after trying to contact a different supervisor, the report stated, and Maloney and the deputy followed the woman outside the precinct and talked.

She filled out a formal complaint, and after her mother came to talk with Maloney, the woman returned and rescinded the complaint, according to the report.

House said Maloney’s reassignment is temporary and that he can request to be transferred back to the sheriff’s enforcement division sometime in the future. Maloney, 40, has been with the sheriff's department since 1998.