Two sheriff's department employees are back to work after serving separate, unrelated suspensions.
Sheriff Jim Hammond suspended one for a minor infraction, the other on more severe charges.
County courts officer Jim Pickett returned to work Dec. 1 after serving a one-month suspension. An investigation found he had been having sex with a female employee of a private security company in a third-floor room of the Hamilton County Courthouse.
An internal affairs report charged that Pickett violated department policies on truthfulness, cooperation, on/off-duty conduct and conduct unbecoming.
Hammond said he decided to suspend but not fire Pickett after weighing the man's 23-year record of service with no major infractions and considering that the acts reportedly occurred after working hours.
"I think when you deal with human nature with this many employees, close to 400, you're going to have issues," Hammond said.
"I do not approve of these kind of actions," he said, but if employees don't meet department expectations, "we will discipline them according to the rules and regulations, policies and procedures."
Those involved in the investigations were told the investigative files had been obtained by the Chattanooga Times Free Press but declined to comment, Hammond said.
In June, the security company employee's husband filed a complaint stating that he found nude photos of his wife that she sent from her cell phone to Pickett, according to an internal affairs report.
The woman later confessed to her husband and investigator Sgt. David Rodery that she'd had a sexual relationship with Pickett for almost a year and that some meetings took place in the courthouse, "but always after 4 p.m."
In two interviews with Rodery, Pickett denied having sex in the court building or on the job. Later, he called Rodery and changed his story, according to the report.
In an unrelated violation, Deputy Chief Ron Parson was found to have violated password standards by allowing Officer Ryan Epperson to use Parson's user name and password to access the department's computer network.
According to the investigative report, Epperson accessed the network with Parson's profile information in order to "assimilate written work into a completed paper" that the chief had researched for a professional development class.
Parson was suspended for one day without pay for the incident.