The Atlanta Police Department is officially scrambling after a high ranking official was unmasked in a massive workplace sex scandal. Deputy Chief Kelley Collier, a long serving veteran of the force, has been identified as the man at the center of a two-year extramarital affair with married U.S. District Judge Eleanor Ross.
The department didn’t waste any time launching an internal probe once the news broke on Thursday. In a statement posted on their website, the agency revealed, “The Atlanta Police Department has launched an investigation to determine if the person mentioned in the Committee on Judicial Conduct and Disability of the Judicial Conference of the United States, is indeed an employee of the Atlanta Police Department.
According to the official judicial complaint, the two were apparently not trying to keep things quiet. The report confirmed that Ross and Collier had sex in “chambers and during business hours” and the encounters were so loud that court staff could easily hear moans and kissing sounds coming right through the doors. While the initial judicial committee report kept the names anonymous, Bloomberg Law blew the lid off the story by matching the timeline. The committee noted that the mystery officer serves as a “commander of a certain division” and has served Atlanta since 1998, which perfectly lines up with Collier’s professional bio and his recently deleted LinkedIn page. Before his digital footprint was wiped, his official APD bio boasted that “Collier has a passion for analytics, computer technology, and efficient management strategies and he applies these skills daily to achieve positive outcomes for the department.” The Post tried to reach Collier Thursday evening for comment, but an automated message stated he was out of the office.
Judge Ross isn’t just any judge, she is a major trailblazer in the Georgia legal system. Appointed by former President Barack Obama in 2014, she made history as the first Black woman to ever serve as a federal judge for the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia. She has spent years handling high stakes criminal cases, most notably presiding over the high profile tax fraud trial of reality TV stars Todd and Julie Chrisley back in 2022. Outside of her heavy courtroom duties, she is married to Georgia State Court Judge Brian Ross, which adds an extra layer of complexity to the fallout. Along with the loud workplace encounters, the judicial committee report slammed Ross for attending a partisan political event and making false statements to the judges who were trying to investigate her behavior.
According to the documents, the committee stated that “For two years, the Subject Judge was a federal district judge who routinely heard criminal cases engaged in a secret extramarital relationship with a prominent officer of a large law enforcement agency in the judge’s district.” Even though the investigation concluded that the secret relationship created a troubled and highly uncomfortable workplace environment for her law clerks, Judge Ross only walked away with a “private reprimand” for the conduct, meaning she gets to keep her seat on the bench. Meanwhile, the heat is turning up on the Atlanta Police Department as they determine what consequences their own deputy chief will face.
