A second officer has resigned following sexual harassment allegations by a female employee of the Commerce Police Department.
Captain Chad Knight, head of the department’s Criminal Investigation Division, resigned Aug. 13, the same day he was suspended for 28 days without pay in connection with the allegations.
Earlier, Cpl. Cameron Boswell, named by the same complainant, resigned in July.
The case was handled by the Internal Affairs department of the Gwinnett County Sheriff’s Office.
According to the complainant, she and Knight had a previous relationship prior to her joining the police department in 2006. She claimed Knight later wanted to restore the relationship and that he pressured her to have intercourse while both were on duty.
Knight, according to the case file, did not deny having a relationship with the woman after she joined the police department, but he maintained it was consensual.
The woman presented copies of 41 text messages containing vulgar messages, notes of affection and photos — from Knight as evidence. Knight told investigators he’d received similar text messages from her, but had erased them.
The investigator did not issue an opinion on whether Knight’s actions constituted sexual harassment. City manager Clarence Bryant, city attorney John Stell and police chief John Gaissert ultimately declared that the evidence did not support the allegation of sexual harassment.
The investigators appeared to find the water muddied by the testimony of other officers who reported that the alleged victim was “overtly suggestive,” “raunchy” and “at times extremely unprofessional” and spent excessive amounts of time online at social networking sites. She, in turn, admitted forwarding “provocative pictures and messages” to Knight.
