Former Sedgwick County deputy loses license after lying about having sex while in uniform
A former Sedgwick County Sheriff’s Office deputy has been stripped of his law enforcement certification after lying about having sex while in uniform.
Kelly Cordova worked for the sheriff’s office from August 2021 to February 2023, according to a summary order of revocation from the Kansas Commission on Peace Officers’ Standards and Training, also known as KS-CPOST.
An internal sheriff’s investigation showed five deputies allegedly had sex with a civilian employee while some were on duty, The Eagle previously reported.
Cordova and deputy Kelly Meehan resigned amid the investigation into the allegations, sheriff’s office spokesperson Lt. Nathan Gibbs said in an email. The civilian employee resigned as well.
The CPOST order gave this account:
The sheriff’s office launched an investigation after a Sedgwick County employee told another employee that she allegedly had sex with five sheriff’s office deputies, some of whom were on duty. Cordova was named as one of the five.
Investigators interviewed Cordova on Jan. 9, 2023, about his relationship with the employee. He admitted to having sex with her on two separate occasions.
Cordova initially said both instances occurred while he was off duty and not in uniform. He said the first time was at a hotel. The second happened a week later; he said he couldn’t remember where.
The sheriff’s office scheduled a polygraph test for Cordova on Jan. 12, 2023 after investigators found his answers to be suspicious. A second interview was done after the polygraph found Cordova’s answers to show “significant signs of deception.”
During the follow-up interview, Cordova gave details that conflicted with what he told investigators on Jan. 9.
In the second encounter with the civilian employee, Cordova said he had just gotten off work at around 8 a.m. and was still uniform when he had sex with the employee inside her car in the parking lot of Academy Sports.
The sheriff’s office determined that Cordova had lied during an investigation.
Lying can cause officers to lose their certification and to be placed on a list kept by the Sedgwick County District Attorney’s Office of officers who have policy violations that could call into question their credibility as a witness in a trial.
Cordova met with KS-CPOST Commissioner George Brown on Aug. 31, 2023. During the interview, Cordova denied having sex with the employee during the second encounter at Academy Sports parking lot, saying that they “hung out... we talked.”
Brown brought up that Cordova told the sheriff’s office that he admitted to having sex with the employee while in uniform. When asked if this was true, Cordova said yes and added that “there was sexual stuff that happened, and I was in uniform.”