By Tim Eberly
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
ATLANTA — Atlanta police Chief Richard Pennington on Wednesday fired a high-ranking official in connection with a botched investigation involving the husband of a police sergeant.
Pennington fired Lt. Cerelyn “C.J.” Davis after a half-hour administrative hearing with her Wednesday afternoon, said Davis’ attorney, Mary Huber. Earlier this month, Pennington demoted Davis from major to lieutenant and removed her as commander of the department’s internal affairs unit.
Two other police employees involved in the case, Sgt. Tonya Crane and crime analyst Randolph Ory, are also no longer with the department. Ory was fired, and Crane resigned before the department made a decision on how to discipline her, according to police.
Davis, Crane and Ory got in trouble for their roles in covering up the alleged crimes of Crane’s husband, Pennington said.
Federal authorities indicted Crane’s husband, Terrill Marion Crane, in November on charges of producing child pornography after Atlanta police provided them with sexual photos of Crane and underage girls. But Atlanta police were given the photos in 1999 and took no action.
The photos re-emerged last fall when found in a file cabinet.
An investigation by the city’s Law Department concluded that:
* Davis told two detectives not to look into the case.
* Tonya Crane burned sexually explicit photos of her husband after someone tipped her off.
* Ory, a close friend of Terrill Crane’s, knew about some of Crane’s sexual exploits.
Huber attended the hearing with Davis and said they had hoped to convince Pennington not to fire Davis.
They gave Pennington the results of a private lie-detector test given to Davis by a certified examiner --- a test that Huber claims Davis passed with flying colors, the attorney said.
It didn’t work.
“We thought she was going to keep her job, and she didn’t,” Huber said. “This is a crock.”
Pennington ultimately fired Davis for lying to city investigators who were trying to find out why the Terrill Crane case was buried.
Huber, however, said Davis never lied or tried to cover up the case and will appeal the chief’s decision to the city’s Civil Service Board.
“She feels really bad. She’s crushed,” Huber said. “They’re giving her the death penalty. It’s the death penalty of her career.”
Copyright 2008 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution