Melissa Williams was in law enforcement for 28 years, the last 11 of which was spent with the Arapahoe County Sheriff's Office in Colorado.
However, she recently retired from the force rather than face an internal investigation because colleagues discovered that for the past 18 months, Williams had been operating an OnlyFans, police said.
The department was notified about Williams' presence on OnlyFans, a site where people post live video of themselves for payment, usually for sexually explicit content. The officer said never posed in her uniform, or even identified herself as a member of the law, and she said it never even occurred to her the sheriff’s department might find her page inappropriate.
Williams said in an interview with KDVR, "I was a really good cop. I was a really good cop and I was a really good leader."
The sheriff's office launched an investigation after receiving a number of complaints, and Williams decided to retire from the force, and accept a $30,000 separation agreement, rather than face the investigation because she said she was convinced she would be fired in the end.
She said, "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."
Don Mayer, Don Mayer, a professor of business ethics and legal studies at the University of Denver says that a law called the “Lawful Off-Duty Activity Statute” protects employees from being fired for what they do in their personal time as long as they’re not breaking any laws, and he doesn't believe what Williams did was unlawful.
However, a spokesman for the sheriff's department says the agency feels that Williams should have "sought permission" for secondary employment, just like any deputy who works security at a bar or a football game is required to do.
Williams still operates her OnlyFans and though she declined to reveal how much she's made, she did acknowledge she had over 300 subscribers.