Ariel Lomax says she can finally rest soundly now that the man who attacked her three years ago is headed to prison.
“I slept peacefully and did not have my gun next to me for the first time in three years,” she said. “I feel peace.”
Last month, Maury Swift entered a first offender negotiated guilty plea in Fulton County in connection with two domestic violence incidents and agreed to a 15-year sentence, with the first three to serve in prison. One of those incidents involved Lomax, now 33.
The two met as students at Clark Atlanta University in 2009. Both were on the track team and were accounting majors. They remained friends after college, but it wasn’t until 2019 that they reconnected.
A few weeks later, they started dating.
Lomax said she didn’t see any problematic signs at first. She said Swift was always well-mannered, helping her move to her first apartment and walking her to the bus in the morning for early track meets. Their first date was at a church, Lomax said.
“To this day, it still is a shocker for me, sometimes — until I remember what happened and then when I talk to other women that also dated him,” she said.
Lomax said she began to see another side of Swift in May 2020 while visiting her family. She said he became heavily intoxicated and “verbally berated me in the car,” almost causing them to crash.
Credit: Fulton County Sheriff's Office
Credit: Fulton County Sheriff's Office
Then came the confrontation that occurred after they returned from a trip to Denver to meet his family.
Lomax said they got into an argument as they left a restaurant in Atlanta. She was driving, and had to drop off a friend before heading home.
“I dropped her off at home, she looked in the car and said, ‘Call me when you make it home,’” Lomax said. “I never got a chance to call her.”
As soon as her friend left the car, Lomax said Swift got into the front seat and continued to argue with her. She said she decided to take him to her apartment because it was closer, he was intoxicated and she didn’t want a repeat of May 2020.
Inside the apartment, Lomax said Swift started screaming and shouting. At one point, she said, he became aggressive and tackled her while attempting to grab her phone that was recording the interaction.
“He body-slams me to the ground, immediately bites the right side of my face. I have the phone in my hand, he bites my hand,” Lomax said. “Now, I’m screaming for dear life because I’ve never been in a physical altercation with a man ever.”
Prosecutors said Swift damaged Lomax’s phone at the beginning of the fight, resulting in her not being able to call for help.
Credit: Photo provided by Ariel Lomax
Credit: Photo provided by Ariel Lomax
Lomax then recalled something her father had told her: “Don’t ever put your hands on a man because he is going to hit you back.” To this day, she said she has never done that.
Lomax said Swift grabbed her by her hair and wouldn’t let her leave the apartment. When she tried to get past him, Lomax said Swift body-slammed her again.
“At that point, I saw white and that scared me because I thought he was either going to suffocate me or snap my neck,” Lomax said.
She was finally able to reach the kitchen knives and demanded Swift leave. She wound up using a work computer to call for help. Lomax’s friends soon arrived and called 911.
Swift’s attorney, Travis Foreman, said no police officer ever asked for his client’s side of the story. Foreman said Swift, who once worked for the Atlanta Police Department (2013-14), was offered worse plea deals than some of his clients who are charged with murder or other violent crimes.
He said Swift, 34, decided to take the deal after considering a warning the judge gave him. He pleaded guilty to aggravated assault/strangulation, false imprisonment, criminal damage to property and battery.
“The judge made it perfectly clear that if he lost that trial, he was going to sentence him to the max of 36 years,” Foreman said. “He didn’t want to take a risk of 36 years with his future.”
Lomax said Swift tried to contact her the day after the confrontation at her apartment, but she didn’t return his calls. She said Swift’s father even called to apologize.
That’s when she began the legal process. But in the midst of the pandemic, the case was caught in the backlog.
When Lomax met with investigators and prosecutors, she told them that Swift said he worked for the Central Intelligence Agency. In an interview with Channel 2 Action News after the plea deal, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis said Swift used that as “an intimidation factor, saying that these women had nowhere to go to report the harm that he did to them.”
Foreman denied those allegations, saying: “For (Willis) to say that, I think it’s completely out of line. No one from her office ever talked to us about this case.”
Foreman confirmed that Swift worked for the federal government in a classified capacity but did not name the agency.
Lomax didn’t find out until January 2023 that Swift had later attacked another woman until two indictments were brought against him.
“To hear there was another person, that broke me down,” Lomax said.
During the plea hearing, family and friends testified about Swift’s character, but only his aunt apologized to Lomax and the other victims. Prosecutors also said Swift’s previous girlfriends would have testified that he was violent toward them on multiple occasions.
“Good people do bad things, all the time, and bad people do good things, all the time,” Lomax said. “You saying how good of a person he was, or is, does not (negate) the fact that he did these things.”
During the hearing, Swift said he had made amends with all of his previous girlfriends, except for Lomax.
“I’ve never heard I’m sorry. I still haven’t heard that,” she said. “I don’t need it. I forgave him, I have to for me.
“I just want anyone that is a victim of domestic violence to get out of it, lean on your family and friends, not be embarrassed about what has happened to you because it’s not your fault,” she added. “The quickest thing we do is blame ourselves.”
