2 Jax officers resign after lewd e-mail investigation

2 Jax officers resign after lewd e-mail investigation



By DANA TREEN
Morris News Service
Publication Date: 12/04/08


JACKSONVILLE -- Complaints of a lewd e-mail to a Nassau County Sheriff's Office dispatcher opened an investigation that led to her arrest on a grand theft charge, accusations of sex on the job and resignations of two other officers.

Melissa Leigh Sharkey, 28, of Tidal Wave Lane in Jacksonville, was charged Monday with doctoring time sheets and collecting nearly $2,000 in bogus overtime, according to the Sheriff's Office. Sharkey worked at the agency for two years and seven months and was recently promoted to supervisor, Sheriff Tommy Seagraves said.

Sharkey has not been charged with any other crime. A woman who said she was Sharkey's mother and spoke to the Times-Union outside the Tidal Wave Lane property said her daughter had been advised not to discuss the case.

The questionable overtime was discovered in an investigation that began when a photo of a corrections officer's barbell-pierced genitals was e-mailed to Sharkey and seen by a dispatcher who found the image distasteful, Seagraves said.

The corrections officer who sent the photo was on duty and in uniform when the photo was taken, Seagraves said.

He said the corrections officer, Daniel Scott Dover, 34, resigned last week after admitting he was on duty when the photo was taken.

After the e-mail was reported to administrators, others employees came forward with complaints that workers Sharkey supervised were allowed to go grocery shopping on duty and take lengthy lunch breaks.

Seagraves said investigators also found Sharkey allowed a pajama-clad sailor onto Sheriff's Office grounds that are not open to the public and that she took a break to meet an off-duty deputy at a state driver's license bureau parking lot in Yulee at 2 a.m. on Oct. 16. Seagraves said Sharkey engaged in a sexual act with the deputy, which she also confirmed in the internal investigation summary. Richard C. Baldwin, 38, the off-duty officer, was in uniform and leaving an off-duty job in his patrol car, Seagraves said.

Baldwin resigned after being questioned, the sheriff said.

"These weren't people behind a door at a motel room on their day off," Seagraves said. "I dealt with it when it was brought to my attention."

Seagraves said what was found in the investigation was an embarrassment to the agency.

"What if someone had pulled in there?" he said.

Seagraves would not discuss specifics but said he expects to make management changes in the dispatch center. "I feel this is my problem that I will have to deal with deeper," he said.

Seagraves said Sharkey was a civilian employee and not held to the same standards as a sworn officer but was still held to a standard of respectability.

The Nassau County Sheriff's Office said it completed an internal investigation reviewing Sharkey's signed time sheets against her actual computer-generated log-in and log-out times for the last year. The review found 42 discrepancies resulting in $1,872 in unearned pay.


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