Floyd officer wins point but sentence sticks

When authorities learned that a Floyd County police officer had sex with a 16-year-old suspect and then falsified his reports about it, they brought charges and then convicted him.

But the former officer, Paul Wiggins Jr., appealed his convictions on the grounds he was denied his right as a police officer to appear before the grand jury that indicted him. In a ruling issued Monday, the Georgia Supreme Court upheld that right but refused to overturn all of Wiggins' convictions.

In a unanimous decision, the state Supreme Court upheld the cruelty to children conviction against Wiggins because it found that he was not performing his regular duties when he had sex with the teenager. The court threw out the false statements conviction against Wiggins on the grounds that filling out his daily activity sheet was part of his official duties.

The ruling does not change the length of time Wiggins will serve in prison. He was sentenced to 15 years behind bars for cruelty to children and five years for false statements. But the sentences were ordered to run concurrently.

Floyd County District Attorney Leigh Patterson said she was pleased the ruling keeps Wiggins in prison for 15 years. "This was a serious breach of trust for a police officer to engage in this kind of conduct with this young victim while he was on duty," she said.

The incident occurred in July 2003 when Wiggins was dispatched to a hotel where six people, including the 16-year-old, were partying. When another officer found crystal methamphetamine, the officer arrested the two men who possessed the drugs. But Wiggins vouched for the victim, who attended school with his children.

Prosecutors said Wiggins took the victim's driver's license and asked her to meet him at a convenience store.

After promising the teenager he would not tell her father about the hotel arrest if she cooperated, Wiggins then drove the girl to a park in his patrol car and had sex with her.