Cops and Dispatchers Sex Scandal Leaves City Forever Changed

MAULDIN, SC — The letter that would go on to rock this Upstate city’s police department arrived unsigned and addressed to a longtime city police captain.

As reported by the Post and Courrier, a Mauldin dispatcher and three married officers were “sleeping with” each other or “just messing around,” the writer said. Someone had even accidentally walked in on the dispatcher and one of the officers at work, the letter said, “which is absolutely disgusting and uncalled for.”

Naming names and suggesting leads, the writer left it up to the captain to pursue the salacious allegations in the January letter.

“There’s proof, you just need to look for it.”

 

The letter, and the subsequent firings and resignations of five officers and two dispatchers from the Mauldin Police Department, were made public last month, bringing unwanted headlines to this suburb of Greenville that is home to 25,000 people.

A department investigation found that the officers and dispatchers were taking part in “inappropriate sexual activities” while they were on duty and on city property, city officials said. The acts were consensual and occurred over several years. Two people involved, a police officer and dispatcher, were not “truthful during the investigation” and were fired for misconduct, according to the city.

City officials asked the State Law Enforcement Division to investigate, but the agency declined the request after discussing it internally and with local prosecutors, a SLED spokesman said. That’s left Mauldin officials with the task of moving on as they try to fill the open positions caused by losing more than 10 percent of its police force.

“While the inappropriate actions of seven city employees has garnered a great deal of attention we should not overlook all the other dedicated, professional employees across all departments in the city that continue to provide excellent customer service in their daily routines,” Mauldin City Administrator Brandon Madden said in a statement.

 

“The city values the members of its hardworking police department.”

Meanwhile, the scandal has generated crude jokes and frustration with the department on social media. One woman recently commented on the police department’s Facebook page: “You haven’t made any posts the entire month of June. Did your social media person get fired as well?” the woman wrote. “Give us Mauldin residents a update on what’s going on now in our town please & thank you.”

Despite those and other comments, several local residents interviewed last week said they weren’t aware of or weren’t closely following what had happened. When the police department broke its Facebook silence with a message ahead of the July 4th holiday, users shared supportive and positive words.

“Thank you for all you do,” one woman wrote.

Reduced force

When applying for a Mauldin police officer job in 2014, Christian Balsiger was asked what he would do if a colleague, of the opposite sex, asked him to come over to her apartment to discuss training and get to know each other.

He’d been married for a couple of years then, he said, and he would not compromise his integrity or do anything that would let the relationship go from professional to inappropriate, according to notes an evaluator wrote.

Balsiger, however, was among four department officers found to have been “involved in inappropriate sexual activities” with dispatcher Calandra Dawson, according to details put out by city officials. The other officers were identified as Christopher McHone, Kyle Quin and LaQuendin Counts.

Officers Quin, Counts and Adam Lawrence were all involved in similar activity with dispatcher Amy Ketchum, the city said. All of the officers and dispatchers were in their 20s and 30s, records show.

Balsiger and Quin declined to comment. Efforts to reach the other former employees were unsuccessful.

Counts, who received the city’s 2017 officer of the year award, and Dawson were interviewed at least twice during the investigation and were found to be dishonest, according to records provided by the S.C. Criminal Justice Academy. Both were fired on June 4. The remaining five employees resigned the same day.

Mauldin isn’t the only police agency in the Upstate, or South Carolina, that has faced a scandal in recent months.

In March, a grand jury indicted suspended Greenville County Sheriff Will Lewis on charges that he abused the “power and authority of his office for the corrupt purpose of pursuing or facilitating an adulterous relationship,” illegally disposed of seized assets and intimidated employees who were potential witnesses in an investigation into his conduct, among other allegations.

The charges were just the latest in a string of scandals involving South Carolina sheriffs, which was detailed in a Post and Courier investigation this year.