Former Forsyth County chief deputy arrested on child porn charges
Former Forsyth County Chief Deputy Grady Sanford (Forsyth County Sheriff's Office)
FORSYTH COUNTY, Ga. - A former chief deputy with the Forsyth County Sheriff’s Office is facing charges after investigators said credible evidence surfaced he was distributing child porn.
Forsyth County Chief Deputy Grady Sanford, 56, was charged with two counts of distribution of child pornography following a search warrant executed at a home on Windsor Green Court in Canton on Tuesday morning, according to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.
The GBI said they were acting on a tip received on November 6 by the National Center of Missing and Exploited Children that showed child sexual abuse images being uploaded to a popular email platform from an IP address at the Canton home.
Forsyth County Sheriff Freeman said he fired Sanford after probable cause was recovered during that search. He posted a statement about the arrest and termination on the Forsyth County Sheriff’s Office Facebook page that evening that reads:
“To say this is a shock is a gross understatement. We intentionally set our standards high at Forsyth County. Regardless of rank, every employee must meet those moral and legal standards. There is no room for this type of crime in our State, and certainly not in the law enforcement profession. Our trust and that of our community has been betrayed. I’ve made a commitment to be transparent, even when one of our own employees does wrong. No one is exempt and no one is above the law.”
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The case is being investigated by the Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force, housed within the GBI’s Child Exploitation and Computer Crimes Unit
Sanford was booked into the Cherokee County jail and released on a $5,600 bond.
Anyone with information on this case or other child exploitation cases should contact the Georgia Bureau of Investigation Child Exploitation and Computer Crimes Unit at 404-270-8870.