Forsyth Sheriff's Office Chief Deputy Faces Child Porn Charges

CUMMING, GA — Second in command at the Forsyth County Sheriff's Office has been arrested for child pornography, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation said Tuesday.

Former Forsyth County Chief Deputy Grady Sanford, 56, was arrested and charged with two counts of distribution of child pornography following a search warrant executed at his home in Canton, authorities said.

At 7:40 a.m., the Georgia Bureau of Investigation contacted Forsyth Sheriff Ron Freeman regarding a search warrant for child pornography that was being executed at an employee’s home, authorities said.

After the search warrant was executed, probable cause existed to make an arrest, the sheriff's office said. Sanford was booked into the Cherokee County Jail. Freeman immediately terminated Sanford’s employment with the Forsyth County Sheriff’s Office, a statement Tuesday night said. His profile is taken off the department's website.

"To say this is a shock is a gross understatement," Freeman said in the statement. "We intentionally set our standards high at Forsyth County. Regardless of rank, every employee must meet those moral and legal standards. There is no room for this type of crime in our state, and certainly not in the law enforcement profession. Our trust and that of our community has been betrayed. I’ve made a commitment to be transparent, even when one of our own employees does wrong. No one is exempt, and no one is above the law."

An investigation into Sanford’s internet activity by the GBI’s Child Exploitation and Computer Crimes Unit began after a report was received from the National Center of Missing and Exploited Children on Friday indicating child sexual abuse images had been uploaded to the internet using a popular email platform. The IP address that was used to log into the email platform returned to the home in Canton, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation said.

Sanford has an extensive history with law enforcement, according to his LinkedIn page. Prior to coming to Forsyth County, he was a deputy sheriff in Gordon County, a police officer in Fairmount, and with the Georgia State Patrol from 1987 through 2016. He left the Georgia State Patrol as a captain and joined the Forsyth County Sheriff's Office in 2017.

He is also a past president of the Georgia Chapter of the FBI National Academy Associates. Sanford is currently the Section III representative for the academy.

Outside of law enforcement, Sanford is an adjunct instructor at Bethel University and Reinhardt University.

This investigation is part of the ongoing effort by the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, housed within the GBI’s Child Exploitation and Computer Crimes Unit, to identify those involved in the child pornography trade. The Internet Crimes Against Children Program, created by the U.S. Department of Justice, was developed in response to the increasing number of children and teenagers using the internet, the proliferation of child pornography, and the heightened online activity by predators searching for unsupervised contact with underage victims.

Anyone with information about other cases of child exploitation is asked to contact the Georgia Bureau of Investigation Child Exploitation and Computer Crimes Unit at 404-270-8870.