UPDATE: Conasauga Judicial Circuit Chief Court Judge William Boyett told the Times Free Press today that he also does not plan to ask the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to look into former deputy Beth Gomez' testimony.
Boyett said he has never called in the GBI to investigate a case, leaving the call up to police or the district attorney.
"We don't get involved in that," he said. "If we had to call the GBI because we had some concern about what local law enforcement was doing, we would be disqualified from sitting on any cases that arose from that.
ORIGINAL STORY: Outside investigators are not looking into a former Whitfield County Sheriff's Office deputy's testimony about widespread drug use within the department.
Beth Gomez was on the stand in support of a friend accused of child molestation last month when a prosecutor asked her about the friend's illegal drug use.
"Would you trust somebody who was taking drugs without permission?" Conasauga Judicial Circuit Assistant District Attorney Keely Parker asked Dec. 20.
"Are you talking about the testosterone he was taking?" said Gomez, a deputy at the time. "Because half the male officers at Whitfield County gets it from the nurse, if that's what you're talking about."
"So she illegally is giving drugs out to the deputies at Whitfield County's sheriff's office?" Parker asked, according to a transcript the district attorney's office provided to the Times Free Press on Wednesday.
Deputy Beth Gomez resigned from the Whitfield County Sheriff's Office on Dec. 22."You will have to take that up with her," Gomez said. "I don't know, but I do know of several male officers that take testosterone."
Maj. John Gibson, the chief deputy in charge of the department's day-to-day operations, said the sheriff's office launched an internal investigation hours after Gomez left the stand. He said Gomez immediately recanted her statement and resigned two days later, as the internal affairs investigation was pending.
Gibson added that an investigator interviewed the nurses and physicians' assistants who are on staff at the sheriff's office, and they denied providing testosterone without prescriptions to officers. Gibson also said the sheriff's office does not stock testosterone.
"It don't make any sense to us," he said, when asked why Gomez would have made up this allegation. " You'd really have to ask her, other than the fact that she thought it would help her friend who was being tried."
The Times Free Press could not find a listed phone number for Gomez. She also did not return a Facebook message seeking comment Wednesday.
There is no outside agency reviewing the sheriff's office's internal inquiry. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation works cases upon request from a sheriff, police chief, district attorney, superior court judge, coroner, governor or GBI director. In this case, nobody has made a request, GBI Special Agent in Charge Greg Ramey said.
Gibson said an outside investigation would waste the state agency's time because there is no credible evidence about illegal drug distribution at the department. The circuit's four Superior Court judges did not return calls seeking comment, and District Attorney Bert Poston said he was satisfied with the sheriff's office's conclusions.
Poston will also not prosecute Gomez for perjury. He said lying on the stand is only a crime when the information is key to a case. Here, the statement about the sheriff's office's drug use had nothing to do with the important facts.
When the Whitfield County Sheriff's Office conducts an internal affairs investigation, the district attorney can review the facts in case an employee committed a crime. But, Gibson said, there is no standard outside group that looks into each case.
At the Chattanooga Police Department, by comparison, a 14-member Administrative Review Committee reviews each case and can make recommendations to the chief. Five members of the board are police officers, and the other nine are civilians.
At the Hamilton County Sheriff's Office, there is no review board. But, spokesman Matt Lea said, a deputy can appeal the results of an internal affairs investigation to a three-person Civil Service Board, appointed by the county commission.
According to her testimony on Dec. 20, Gomez has worked in law enforcement in Whitfield and Murray counties since 1997. When she resigned, she was a field training officer, helping to work with new deputies fresh from the academy.
Two weeks before she testified, according to a news release, administrators named Gomez the Whitfield County employee of the year.
Contact staff writer Tyler Jett at 423-757-6476 or tjett@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @LetsJett.