The Calhoun City Council in a special called meeting on Tuesday, Oct. 7, 2025 voted to accept the resignation letters of Calhoun Fire Chief Lenny Nesbitt and Deputy Fire Chief Terry Mills after the two were placed on a more than seven-week paid administration leave which began on Aug. 15, 2025.

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It was noted in the meeting that the acceptance of the resignation letters was contingent on a waiver being signed by the duo; that waiver was not explained in the meeting. 

 

The leave was, according to City Administrator Paul Worley, an “action (that) was required to ensure compliance with an independent third-party investigation regarding the City’s Fire Department.”

 

That investigation began on Monday, August 18, 2025.

 

As the Gazette originally reported in mid-August, the leave began just as an unlawful termination lawsuit against the City by a former firefighter picked up speed through U.S. District Court, although there has been no confirmation by the City as to whether the leave, independent third-party investigation and subsequent resignations were due to the lawsuit.

 

The Gazette was the first to report that the City of Calhoun, along with Nesbitt, Mills and Worley, were all named in a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in late November 2023 by a former firefighter who alleges he was retaliated against for reporting a complaint of “serious sexual misconduct occurring at the Fire Department and other City property toward a 17-year-old female high school student by a senior Fire Department leader.” The suit also claims the City of Calhoun Fire Department submitted falsified training hours to an ISO auditor so the City of Calhoun would receive a positive ISO score.

 

According to the lawsuit, Plaintiff Christopher Cox, the former Division Chief of Training for the Calhoun Fire Department, is asking the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia Rome Division for a jury trial against defendants the City of Calhoun, Fire Chief Lenny Nesbitt, Deputy Fire Chief Terry Mills and City Administrator Paul Worley in their official and individual capacities.

 

According to the suit, filed in US District Court on November 30, 2023, Cox raised concerns about alleged abuse of authority, alleged misuse of city property and resources, and alleged criminal requests for child pornography by a City leader, and claimed he was a whistleblower pursuant to the Georgia Whistleblower Act O.C.G.A. 45-1-4. The filing alleges there have been several situations involving sexual misconduct by other Fire Department leaders that occurred during the time Cox was employed at the Fire Department.

 

The incident, according to the filing, centers on a complaint concerning former Calhoun firefighter Roger Smith and allegations of sexual misconduct towards a 17-year-old female student. In August 2022, “a female citizen of Calhoun (the “Complainant”) contacted Plaintiff [Cox] to share information about sexual misconduct by Roger Smith toward a 17-year-old female high school student,” the filing states.

 

You can read the Gazette’s original story HERE.

 

Since the original story, the Gazette has learned that Cox and his legal team filed a Motion to asking the court to enter a default judgment in the case, due to what the Plaintiff’s team claims in the filing as the City repeatedly engaging in “discovery abuse, including hiding documents, witness tampering, witness intimidation, perjury, obstruction of justice and fabrication of evidence" just last week, on Sept. 29, 2025.

 

In that filing, the Plaintiff claims that the City’s efforts to mislead the Plaintiff and the Court continues through several different factors.

 

The filing accuses the City of fabricating false disciplinary reports related to Christopher Cox.

 

“It is now undisputed that these forms were created by Nesbitt or someone using his computer on the afternoon of April 4, 2024, after this case was filed and long after Cox was terminated,” reads the filing. “Defendants produced these forms as if they had been part of Cox’s personnel file the entire time, and Nesbitt explicitly testified that the disciplinary forms were created contemporaneously with the activity that led to the discipline.

 

“City Administrator Worley was confronted with these fabrications on August 8, 2025, during his testimony as 30(b)(6) designee for the City,” the filing continues. “Defendants now claim that Worley learned shortly after the deposition that the disciplinary forms were ‘based on journal entries in Chief Nesbitt’s journals, which were kept locked in his office.’ At 5 p.m. on September 19, 2025 (the same day as their response brief was filed), Defendants produced (for the first time) new pages from Nesbitt’s handwritten journal which purported to contain the basis for Worley’s contention that although the fabricated forms were not created contemporaneously to the alleged discipline, they were based upon contemporaneously made journal entries.

 

“Setting aside Defendants’ failure to produce critical documents, an examination of these new documents reveals that Defendants have again fabricated evidence,” the filing continues. “The August 1, 2022, page from Nesbitt’s journal had previously been produced on two occasions: an unredacted version on January 15, 2023, in response to Plaintiff’s subpoena prior to the administrative hearing, and a redacted version on June 21, 2024, in response to Plaintiff’s first request for production. The most recent version, produced on September 19, 2205, contains the following ‘new’ language: ‘2 ½ hrs. Gave verbal reprimand to Chris’ – language absent from both previously produced versions of Nesbitt’s journal.”

The filing includes exhibits that show side by sides of the same page of the journal, and highlights the new language, saying “Defendants wrote in, or falsified these journal entries, again, ‘after the fact,’ to explain the fabricated disciplinary reports.”

 

“While it appears, at least from Worley’s self-serving declaration, that Nesbitt was the likely culprit in fabricating the forms and journal entry(ies), Defendants jointly produced the documents, each time representing them as true – even after having been shown evidence that fabrication likely occurred. Defendants produced the journal entries on September 19, 2025, claiming they were authentic. Worley swore that he examined Nesbitt’s journals and noted they were kept ‘locked’ in Nesbitt’s office. Worley testified that he was part of the original group of people who gathered documents to respond to Cox’s subpoenas sent before the January 18, 2023, appeal hearing. He also testified, in an effort at defending Nesbitt, that disciplinary records were potentially kept at ‘department levels,’ and that it would not be inconsistent with policy, and is a ‘fairly common practice,’ for department heads to keep separate personnel files in their offices away from HR. Pretermitting the logic of those statements, if they are true, there is no explanation for these documents being concealed from before the January 18, 2023, appeal hearing until September 19, 2025. The explanation, of course, is that they did not exist, and Defendants have been caught fabricating evidence for the second time,” reads the filing.

 

The filing also appears to accuse Nesbitt and Mills of attempting to influence and intimidate witnesses.

 

“On June 17, 2025, Nesbitt attempted to influence Courtney Taylor’s upcoming testimony by texting him so they could get their stories straight, asking him to delete the text and deny they spoke,” reads the filing. “Taylor’s interpretation of the text was that ‘he was trying to get me to say things the way he wanted me to say them.’ Taylor did not delete the text, ‘Because [Taylor’s] conscience wouldn’t let [him] do that’ and ‘right is right and wrong is wrong.’ Defendants defend Nesbitt by pointing to Taylor’s testimony that he did not change his testimony based upon the text. However, this position has been rejected by the courts of this state. See Johnson v. State, 277 Ga. App. 499, 506–07 (2006) (“The plain language of OCGA § 16–10–93(a) shows that the crime of influencing a witness focuses solely on the conduct of the accused and is completed when a direct or indirect threat is communicated to the victim; the degree of fear that the victim experiences in response to the threat is not controlling.”). This same analysis applies to Mills’ threat to Todd Holbert that things ‘might not go so great’ for those who testified in this case. The witness tampering was complete when Mills threatened Holbert, regardless of whether Holbert was cowed by the threat or changed his testimony accordingly. Moreover, Mills’ threat to Holbert likely carried over to any number of other firefighters with potentially relevant information. ‘No harm, no foul’ is not a valid response to charges of witness tampering, destruction of evidence, and obstruction of justice.”

 

The filing included exhibits claiming to support the accusations of influencing and intimidating witnesses.

 

The filing also brings up inconsistencies with Mills friendship with Smith, alleging that text messages between the two after Smith was “fired for misconduct” were purposefully withheld despite a request during discovery.

 

“Mills testified that despite being good friends with Roger Smith for decades, he no longer was even ‘acquaintances’ with Smith after Smith was fired for misconduct. Mills failed to produce months of text messages between them, which would have demonstrated this testimony as false, despite those communications being requested in discovery,” reads the filing. “Defendants now blame Mills’ seemingly false testimony on Plaintiff’s counsel for not defining ‘acquaintance.’ Defendants represented in their response brief that the production of these messages would have been impossible because Mills’ phone automatically deletes text messages every thirty days. This representation is false. Putting aside issues as to spoliation, the text messages sent between Mills and Smith regarding this lawsuit are from May 2024, the same month Plaintiff requested the documents in discovery. Plaintiff served those requests on May 1, 2024, and only four days later, on May 5, 2024, Mills and Smith texted back and forth specifically about this lawsuit and the allegations contained therein. The texts resumed on May 9, 2024, with more information related to the lawsuit. Defendants did not produce these texts. Defendants did not disclose the existence of the texts. On March 18, 2025, Plaintiff again requested communications between Terry Mills and Roger Smith, from January 1, 2021, to the present. Defendants again did not produce the texts nor disclose that the texts existed but had allegedly been deleted. Instead, the texts were withheld, and Mills testified falsely about his relationship to Smith.”

 

Exhibits are included in the filing concerning the allegedly withheld text messages.

 

The filing also brings up the original police report, or lack thereof, that the Plaintiff’s team claim was not provided.

 

“Defendants provide no explanation for their failure to produce the police report, but Defendants argue its non-production was irrelevant because Worley did not rely upon it specifically in making his decision to terminate Cox,” reads the filing. “The police report is the only written documentation in existence evidencing the police department’s ‘investigation’ of Smith. Without the police report, the hearing examiner rendered his decision based on Worley and Chief Pyle’s testimony regarding their conversation rather than on the best and only written evidence of what was likely communicated during the call. Without the police report in evidence, Worley mischaracterized (at least by omission) what he learned of the police investigation, and Plaintiff had no opportunity to cross-examine Worley or Chief Pyle with the report at the hearing. Most telling, however, is that Defendants now claim that they have always acknowledged Cox’s complaints about Smith were valid and that he was fired only because he accused Mills and Nesbitt of a coverup. However, the December 12, 2022, termination notice authored by Worley unequivocally states Cox’s allegations against Smith were a major basis for his termination.”

 

Again, exhibits are included in the filing that allegedly supports this claim.

 

The filing is requesting the court to sanction the Defendants by striking their answers and entering a default judgment in favor of Cox.

 

“Defendants have repeatedly engaged in discovery abuse, including hiding documents, witness tampering, witness intimidation, perjury, obstruction of justice and fabrication of evidence. Defendants have doubled down on their misconduct by continuing to fabricate evidence to support their response to the instant motion, filing declarations that are provably false, and arguing ‘no harm, no foul.’ Plaintiff has established a clear record of willful misconduct and has shown that a lesser sanction than striking of Defendants’ answers and entry of default judgment would be inadequate,” reads the filing.

You can read the filing HERE.

The Gazette understands no decision has been made about the hiring of a new fire chief and deputy fire chief and that those discussions are expected to take place in the coming weeks.