Columbus police supervisor appeals firing after alleged affairs with subordinate officers
A Columbus police lieutenant is appealing his firing for sexual harassment and other allegations stemming from what documents describe as two affairs with female officers over whom he had authority.
An internal police department investigation report says Lt. Michael Lloyd Peyton Jr. acknowledged having an affair with a police recruit who was under his supervision, and with a second officer who was in field training. He also admitted sending female officers graphic photos of himself, the report said.
The allegations came to light Jan. 25, just before Peyton, formerly a sergeant in the training division, was promoted to lieutenant Jan. 30. Police Chief Freddie Blackmon ordered an internal investigation on Feb. 1, and Peyton was suspended with pay before he could assume his new rank in a transfer to the patrol division.
After a report from the internal probe sustained complaints against Peyton, he was suspended without pay and summoned July 9 to a police department “show cause” hearing with investigators and senior officers, who gave him five business days to explain why he should not be fired.
Terminated July 19, Peyton no longer is with the police department. But he is appealing his termination under the city merit system, which allows him a hearing with the city’s personnel review board.
Born in 1981, Peyton is a Columbus native who joined the police department on Aug. 22, 2005. He is represented by attorneys with the law firm of Lance LoRusso, which specializes in serving public safety workers.
Peyton’s attorney, Brian Huckaby, did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday.
Peyton said Wednesday that he found it “deeply disturbing” that the Ledger-Enquirer was tipped to an internal police investigation involving information he felt was confidential, restricted to the command staff and the investigators, while his termination was on appeal. He declined to comment further.
Blackmon declined to comment for this article because it involves an ongoing personnel matter.
Details of the investigation are outlined in city documents the Ledger-Enquirer obtained through open-records requests.
The complaint
According to the city records, the police department first learned of the allegations this year from the husband of an officer with whom Peyton admitted having an affair.
The spouse reported he became suspicious when his wife started taking her cell phone into the shower, so he checked her phone and smartwatch, and found intimate texts from a “Sgt. Michelle.” When he confronted his wife on Sept. 2, 2020, she admitted having an affair with another man, but would not disclose the identity of “Sgt. Michelle,” the husband told investigators.
When questioned during the internal police investigation, the woman said Peyton first texted her in a “flirtatious” manner in March 2020 before they shared a kiss the following April in the parking lot of police headquarters at 510 10th St., where Peyton started asking her about her troubled marriage.
“It was kind of like, he was feeling out the waters. Like, he wanted to know my story,” she said, later adding, “It just sort of happened because he inserted himself, like, kind of into my life.”
The first time they had sex was in a Columbus motel room in April 2020, the same day she started classes at the police academy, she said. She said she was a “willing participant” in the affair, but also feared for her job, being a recruit involved with a supervisor.
Later they would rendezvous in motel rooms during lunch breaks, the report said, and on one occasion they met at Peyton’s fraternity house on 13th Street in Columbus.
The husband told investigators that when he discovered “Sgt. Michelle” was Michael Peyton, he asked his wife and Peyton to end the relationship, but did not report it, for fear of harming their careers.
He said he changed his mind upon learning that Peyton and his wife had a subsequent sexual encounter, and that Peyton had arranged to meet her Jan. 11 in Forsyth, at the Georgia Public Safety Center Training Academy. There, she confronted Peyton about his own marriage, as she had learned from colleagues Peyton was married. He had told her he was divorced.
Concluding Peyton would not stop pursuing his wife, the husband finally reported the affair in late January to police Lt. Tim Wynn, who was Peyton’s supervisor in the department’s training division. Wynn reported it to his superiors, collecting two statements from the husband as evidence.
Nude photos
According to the report compiled by the department’s Office of Professional Standards, investigators soon discovered Peyton had a second affair, with an officer in training, and had sent female officers nude images of himself.
Witnesses said the images included either a still photo or a video, that showed Peyton in uniform, exposing himself and masturbating.
The investigators later questioned Peyton about sending explicit images to female coworkers.
“Lieutenant Peyton admitted to sending pictures and videos of himself with his genitals exposed” to another officer, the report said. “He stated that he did take some of those pictures while at work in his office and he was clothed in a department uniform in some of the pictures/videos.”
It added: “When asked, he stated he understood the issues arising from sending provocative pictures to others while clothed in a department uniform.”
The investigators also questioned a female officer whose phone contained a nude photo of Peyton, which a coworker had seen.
She said Peyton started flirting with her while she was in the training division. She and Peyton had a sexual relationship while she was assigned to a field training officer for street duty, she said, but she never felt intimidated or uncomfortable, the report said. He told her he was not married.
A third female officer, who was not in training at the time, told investigators Peyton “did attempt to have a relationship with her,” asking her to meet him in the training division when he was there alone and asking for photos of herself.
She told investigators he would “get really close to her” and touch her, adding that his conduct was “annoyingly persistent.”
A summary of the investigative report gave no timeframe for the second affair, or for the events alleged by the third officer who said Peyton pursued her.
Peyton questioned
When investigators questioned Peyton, he confirmed some of what witnesses had told them, according to the report.
He acknowledged “sexual encounters” with the woman whose husband reported the affair, it said. Peyton said the parking lot meeting happened “just prior to an academy graduation,” and other encounters were after work and sometimes in the parking lot of his fraternity house.
The report summary said Peyton acknowledged having an affair with a subordinate after she went into the field training program, and admitted making sexual advances toward a third officer.
Peyton under questioning acknowledged that both the police department and the city of Columbus have sexual harassment policies that prohibit a supervisor’s making sexual advances toward subordinates.
The report said that when investigators asked Peyton whether sex with subordinates violates that policy, he replied: “I think it can get in a bad situation depending on the outcome or whatever other parties that may be involved, given how much information each party knows.”
Pressed for a more direct answer, he stated, “I should not have been in a relationship with a subordinate,” the report said.
Law enforcement lieutenants are comparable to those in the military, acting as mid-level managers over sergeants, who serve as front-line supervisors, and patrol officers. In rank they are below the chief who runs the department, the deputy chiefs (formerly ranked as majors) who head divisions, and a few captains within those divisions. Within the patrol and investigative divisions, lieutenants often serve as shift supervisors.
The report said that Peyton, like other employees, annually signs a form acknowledging his review of the department’s sexual harassment policy, and attends sexual harassment training.
He last signed to say he reviewed the policy on Feb. 9, eight days after he was suspended.
In addition to the two affairs and explicit images sent to female coworkers, the Office of Professional Standards report findings state Peyton had sexual encounters in his office at the police department and used the department’s email system to arrange sexual engagements.
Who is Michael Peyton?
Peyton made headlines only once in his 16-year career with the police force.
He was a sergeant serving with the fugitive task force on May 2, 2018, when he and a corporal fatally shot a homicide suspect named Damion “Dae-Dae” Collier in a car at 35th Street and River Road.
The shooting was ruled justifiable, based on reports Collier pulled a gun on the officers as they surrounded the Ford Fiesta.
Peyton’s record shows some personnel issues early in his career: He was disciplined for minor traffic accidents in his police cruiser, for missing a court date, and for missing inspection one day when he worked in the motor patrol division.
His most severe offense was in 2011, when he ignored orders forbidding his working off duty security at a nightclub on Milgen Road. He was suspended for 16 hours without pay.
Peyton’s personnel record otherwise shows he received good performance reviews, and his superiors encouraged him to seek promotions and specialized training.
The records show Peyton was born on Fort Benning, and lived in Fort Sam Houston and San Antonio, Texas, and in Statesboro, Georgia, where he went to college.
He graduated from Christian Heritage Academy on Forrest Road in Columbus on May 28, 1999, and he got a bachelor’s degree from Georgia Southern University in May 2005, before he joined the police department that August.
He got a master’s degree from the University of Phoenix on April 18, 2009, which by city policy earned him a $1,200 bonus. He transferred to the motor squad in 2009, was promoted to corporal in 2012 and then to sergeant in 2013.
He transferred to the investigative services division on Nov. 19, 2016, records show, and moved to the training division as a sergeant in early 2020.
He was among seven officers promoted to lieutenant Jan. 29 in a ceremony at the Columbus Convention & Trade Center, shortly before he was suspended.
This story was originally published August 12, 2021 at 7:00 AM.