Two young women from Jesup, Georgia, have been arrested and charged with felonies after state investigators said the sexual-assault complaints they made against a Wayne County sheriff's deputy were fabricated — allegations the Georgia Bureau of Investigation says the two agreed to invent together.

Source: Georgia Bureau of Investigation

Trinity Bradley, 20, and Karlee Mooney, 18, both of Jesup, were arrested on Monday, November 2, the GBI announced. Each faces one count of felony false statements, one count of felony conspiracy to commit a crime of false statements, and one count of misdemeanour false report of a crime. Mooney was arrested by agents, and Bradley turned herself in, the bureau said; both were booked into the Wayne County Jail.

The complaint, and what investigators say they found

The case began on Wednesday, September 30, 2026, when the Wayne County Sheriff's Office asked the GBI to investigate allegations Bradley and Mooney had made: that a Wayne County deputy sexually assaulted them while he was on duty. According to the GBI, the two said the assaults happened during ride-alongs — the supervised patrols in which a member of the public rides in a deputy's vehicle. The deputy, whom the GBI did not name in its release, was placed on administrative leave by the sheriff's office while the investigation was conducted.

The GBI says its preliminary investigation found the opposite of what was reported. In the bureau's words, preliminary information indicates Bradley and Mooney agreed to each falsely report that they were victims of sexual assaults by the deputy during ride-alongs, and both women made multiple false statements to the Wayne County Sheriff's Office and to the GBI. Those are the bureau's allegations, set out in its November 2 release; Bradley and Mooney have been charged, not convicted, and are presumed innocent unless the state proves the charges in court.

Why a state bureau ran the investigation

Georgia sheriffs routinely hand investigations that touch their own deputies to the GBI, the state's independent investigative agency, so that the findings do not rest on an office investigating itself. This case was worked by the GBI's Regional Investigative Office in Kingsland, under Special Agent in Charge Jason Seacrist, whose name appears on the release. The bureau said the investigation is still active and ongoing even after Monday's arrests.

The arrests close one chapter for the deputy at the centre of the original complaint: the GBI release says he was placed on administrative leave while the investigation was conducted, but it does not state his current duty status, and the bureau has not publicly named him. No civil or personnel decision about the deputy was announced in the release.

What happens next

Once the GBI completes its investigation, the case file will be given to the Brunswick Judicial Circuit District Attorney's Office for review — the prosecutorial circuit that covers Wayne County — which will decide how the charges proceed. Anyone with information is asked to contact the GBI's Kingsland office at 912-729-6198, or to submit an anonymous tip at 1-800-597-TIPS (8477), online through the GBI's tip portal, or through the See Something, Send Something app, the bureau said.

Jesup is the Wayne County seat in southeast Georgia, a community of roughly 10,000 people. Cases like this one draw attention precisely because they are the exception investigators point to when they describe complaint systems: a deputy's career was put on hold by an allegation that the state's own investigators now say was invented, and two young women who made the report now face felony charges of their own. What a court makes of the evidence is the next, and deciding, step.