A Colorado sheriff’s deputy retired with a $30,000 separation agreement instead of facing an internal investigation over an OnlyFans page she owns.
“I was a really good cop. I was a really good cop and I was a really good leader,” Melissa Williams, 48, told a reporter.
Williams was in law enforcement for 28 years, spending the last 11 years with the Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Office and most recently served as a lieutenant at a detention center.
She had the OnlyFans account for 18 months without any problems, but then coworkers found out and a female officer in a nearby police department filed a complaint.
“I think some people viewed as what I did for fun, as being a sex worker, but I’m the same as someone else’s neighbor, their friend, mom, daughter. I’m still the same person I was for the 18 months the page existed and nobody knew,” Williams said.
She still operates the OnlyFans page, where subscribers pay a monthly fee to see Williams nude or watch her sexual encounters with her husband. Williams said she posted the content when she was off-duty, was never in uniform in the content she posted and never identified herself as a law enforcement officer.
“A lot of the material my husband and I shared is stuff we’d taken in our private sex life over the years,” Williams, a mother of two, said according to the New York Post. “I was working up to 60-hour weeks, so mostly my husband ran the page and shared my pictures, and then sometimes we’d have fun dressing me up and taking photos especially to share.”
The complaint was filed on Aug. 5, describing that Williams’ “poor judgment was a discredit to the Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Office.”
“I was like, this doesn’t even affect the person that reported it. It doesn’t affect my work, it doesn’t affect my employees, it doesn’t affect the community,” Williams said.
The sheriff’s office investigated the complaint and internal documents obtained by KDVR said, “The website contained pictures of Lt. Williams posing for pictures clearly showing her face and her genitals, one or more of the photos appear to have been taken in a very public location.”
A spokesman for the sheriff told KDVR that Williams should have gotten permission for the secondary job, but Williams pushed back that it did not occur to her to ask for permission.
“No, because it really doesn’t generate employment income and there are a lot of individuals throughout the metro area who have what could be considered secondary employment but it isn’t something that gets claimed or gets reported,” she said.
She pulls in about $4,000 a month from the account, according to the New York Post.
She took the $30,000 separation and release agreement in November, retiring from the force partly because she believes she would have been fired if she didn’t.
“I did not leave out of shame and I did not leave out of embarrassment for the OnlyFans page. I left because it was the right thing for myself and my family, and honestly, the OnlyFans piece was just one part of it,” Williams said, according to KDVR.
“I loved my job — but how could I go back to work in an environment like that?” said Williams, the New York Post reported. “It was hard being a woman in the force. People have always been jealous of me because I am successful, attractive and confident.”
The Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Office said in a comment to KDVR that Williams was not fired or forced out, and that she “sought to negotiate a severance and elected to resign her employment” before the investigation was completed.
“Ms. Williams was not fired, nor was she forced to leave the Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Office. Ms. Williams’ allegations appear to be nothing more than an effort to manufacture a ‘newsworthy’ story to drive traffic to her website,” the sheriff’s office said.
Actually , its sounds like jealousy and hate is the reason she had to retire. The OnlyFans account was done in her Personal Home time and had nothing at all to do with the Sheriffs department. I understand why the thinking on it might possibly reflect on her work place but apparently it never did show up as a problem ! Or any problems for her or anyone else concerning their jobs . I believe this to be full Overreach on the Sheriffs dept or possible City Hall to even involve themselves in a loyal employees personal life. . . . .