She reported that the deputy touched her, over and over — across her back, on her knee and up her leg. He clasped her hand, lifted her T-shirt sleeve and ran his thumb across the back of her fingers.  When she rejected his advances, he assured her they could have sex in “secret,” she wrot e in a complaint to his employer, the Rankin County Sheriff’s Department. Again, she said no. Joanna Karras is convinced few people would believe what Deputy Michael Cody Rayborn did to her last October during her Saturday night shift as a 911 dispatcher at the Florence Police Department if it hadn’t been partially caught by a security camera just above their heads.  Towering above her at over 6 feet tall, the 31-year-old deputy walked into the station just minutes before midnight and cut the lights off. The two had crossed paths for years through their work in Rankin law enforcement, but Karras said the deputy had no apparent reason to drop by. The patrol deputy wrote in his employee timesheet that he was working the night shift. But he had entered another police department and flopped into a chair to watch TV right next to Karras.  Two details put the 28-year-old dispatcher on edge: Rayborn was in full uniform, complete with a gun and Taser, and they were alone. Mississippi Today obtained the silent footage showing what happened next: Rayborn touched her repeatedly on her hand, arm, back and leg area across the next half-hour as she sat, backed into a corner. “What the fuck is your problem?” Karras recalled asking Rayborn, according to a sworn statement she later filed to launch a criminal case against him. “You have something to fix it,” she said the deputy replied, while eyeing her genital area. In court records, she accused the deputy of repeatedly pressuring her to have sex with him, stopping only when her coworker, Ashten George, came by to drop off food. Sheriff’s Deputy Michael Cody Rayborn looks on at a June 10, 2026, hearing as the Rankin County Court views security footage of an incident in which Joanna Karras accused him of sexually harassing her. Credit: Madeline Nguyen/Mississippi Today “Your actions were improper, they were inappropriate, they were unwanted, they were unprofessional,” Rankin County Court Judge David Morrow Jr. told the deputy after reviewing the video at a June hearing to determine whether a warrant could be issued for his arrest. Then, the judge dismissed the simple assault charge. Rayborn walked out of court. Not only had he avoided arrest, but he had kept his job at the sheriff’s department just next door. “It’s a scary, scary feeling to know that he thinks he can get away with everything, anything,” Karras told Mississippi Today. “Why is he not facing any consequences?” Mississippi Today found Rayborn’s reported treatment of Karras was one of multiple allegations of sexual misconduct and brutality made against Rayborn through his career. The accusations date back at least eight years, to the beginning of his time at the sheriff’s department, where he was among a group of guards accused of perpetuating a culture of unjustified violence against inmates at the county jail. In interviews with Mississippi Today, former inmates said Rayborn’s quick temper drove him to abuse his authority over them, and then threaten or retaliate against them to keep them from speaking out. Carvis Johnson, who has a long history of disciplinary infractions, filed a federal lawsuit against Rayborn and other guards in January 2020, accusing them of beating him so severely they violated his civil rights. The next month, Johnson initiated another lawsuit, this time accusing Rayborn of retaliating against him by withholding showers for weeks and walking him out of view of a security camera so Rayborn and other guards he was suing could beat him.  The Rankin County Sheriff’s Department denied Johnson’s allegations, writing in court records that the guards acted “in good faith” and “without any intent to cause harm.” His lawsuits were combined, and the agency settled with him in 2023. Joanna Karras, pictured near the Rankin County Courthouse in Brandon on Sept. 11, 2026, is a former dispatcher with the Florence Police Department who has accused a Rankin County deputy of sexual harassment. Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi Today The sheriff’s department and the state Department of Public Safety denied Mississippi Today’s requests for public records detailing misconduct allegations and investigations into Rayborn. Both departments stated the information was shielded under the Public Records Act, even though the Mississippi Ethics Commission has ruled that same state law requires law enforcement agencies to release certain records tied to internal affairs investigations upon request.  Mississippi Today traced the accusations that have trailed Rayborn’s career by interviewing alleged victims and corroborating their accounts with witnesses, surveillance footage and records obtained by attorneys who sued the department. The reporting paints a picture of a sheriff’s department that has maintained Rayborn’s position as an officer despite repeated warnings about his alleged misconduct from purported victims: Rayborn is one of at least four sheriff’s officers who remain at the department despite accusations they brutalized inmates at the county jail. Records show that before Rayborn became a deputy, at least four inmates reported to jail officials that he beat them, hurled racial slurs or threatened to kill them over his four years as a guard. In all except one case reviewed by Mississippi Today, departmental officials denied their claims. The sheriff’s department hired Rayborn as a deputy just four months after it settled Johnson’s lawsuit against him. With the new title, the department expanded Rayborn’s authority beyond the jail, to the county and the public at large.  Florence officials banned Rayborn from the city police department and other property in the Rankin County municipality after Karras reported to Mayor Trey Gunn that the deputy had sexually harassed her. Despite Department of Justice recommendations and a history of sexual abuse that landed some Rankin County deputies in prison, Mississippi Today found the sheriff’s department has no specific rule prohibiting officers from abusing their authority to sexually violate civilians. Instead, departmental procedure broadly states that “No form of harassment will be tolerated” but doesn’t specify consequences for violators. After Karras filed a complaint to the sheriff’s department to report Rayborn for sexual harassment, sheriff’s Investigator Tyler Burnell said, the agency launched an internal affairs investigation into her allegations. Records show the agency ultimately decided to keep the deputy on the force. Mississippi Today repeatedly sought comment from Rayborn by email and in person. He did not respond to emails and walked away both times a reporter approached him. The public defender appointed to represent him in the assault case, Daniel Sorrick, also did not respond to an interview request. When Mississippi Today asked Jason Dare, the department’s attorney and spokesperson, for an interview with the agency, he instead referred to a previous statement he made about Karras’ complaint: “The Sheriff’s Office took appropriate action upon learning of this incident. The department’s findings do not appear to be inconsistent with the Court’s recent ruling.” Neither Dare nor Burnell answered follow-up questions about whether the department found Rayborn violated the agency’s harassment procedure or disciplined him over Karras’ allegations. Instead, Dare wrote, “You know that no criminal act was committed — state or federal.” When a law enforcement agency learns an officer has allegedly engaged in sexual misconduct on the job, “at a minimum,” the agency should launch a separate criminal investigation and notify local prosecutors or the FBI to determine whether the allegations amount to a crime, according to Department of Justice guidelines. The sheriff’s department did not answer whether it followed these steps in response to Karras’ complaint. Lawmakers gave the state Board on Law Enforcement Officer Standards and Training the power to investigate allegations of police misconduct after five former officers from the sheriff’s department pleaded guilty to torture in 2023. The board’s office also ultimately closed its investigation of Karras’ complaint without taking any action, according to Public Safety Commissioner Sean Tindell. Tindell, who sits on the board, said he was not familiar with Karras’ complaint and declined to view and comment on footage of the encounter in case the incident leads to further litigation. The state attorney general’s office, which prosecutes abuse of power by public officials, initially declined to pursue a criminal investigation after Karras reported the deputy to the agency. After Mississippi Today provided footage of the encounter to the office, spokesperson MaryAsa Lee stated on Sept. 4 that the agency would review it. Tom Tremblay, a former Vermont police chief and public safety commissioner who now advises law enforcement agencies on handling sexual misconduct, said if departments find an officer has engaged in “sexual contact” while on the job, the proper response is to fire them. “A predatory sexual offender with the power and authority of the police is an extremely serious breach of the ethics of law enforcement,” said Tremblay, who spoke generally about the issue but did not specifically review Rayborn’s case. “They ought not to be part of our noble profession.” Top row: former Rankin County sheriff’s deputies Hunter Elward, Christian Dedmon and Brett McAlpin; bottom row: former deputies Jeffrey Middleton and Daniel Opdyke, and former Richland police officer Joshua Hartfield. All pleaded guilty to federal and state charges in 2023 for torturing county residents as a part of the Goon Squad. Credit: Rogelio V. Solis/Associated Press The allegations against Rayborn come after five former officers at the sheriff’s department were sentenced to federal and state prison in 2024 for sexually assaulting and abusing Rankin County residents in what a federal judge called “the most shocking, brutal and cruel acts imaginable.” Since the scandal, the sheriff’s department’s “systems of accountability” have been under investigation by the Department of Justice to determine whether the agency is violating the Constitution and federal law.  The former officers, some of whom called themselves the Goon Squad, had built careers under the sheriff, some rising to high ranks and winning awards for their work. While Sheriff Bryan Bailey stated the “inappropriate conduct” was contained to an “isolated group of deputies,” an investigation by Mississippi Today and The New York Times uncovered that allegations of brutality and sexual misconduct by officers spanned decades, with some personnel involved still at the department. “Even though the prior actions were abnormal and extreme, we will make every effort to ensure that they do not occur in the future,” Bailey wrote in a 2023 press release after the officers tied to the Goon Squad pleaded guilty.  But three years later, Rayborn’s alleged victims and witnesses say the sheriff’s department continues to support a deputy they have accused of similar abuses. “What has to happen for somebody to be held accountable?” Karras asked. “If he gets away with it, who else is getting away with it?” A ‘lifesaving’ deputy leaves behind a trail of misconduct allegations Karras remembered Rayborn as the officer who came to her aid three years before that October night at the police department. Joanna Karras reported to her workplace, the Florence Police Department, on Nov. 7, 2022, that her former partner texted her he would shoot up her and the agency, before sending a picture of a gun outfitted with a drum magazine, police records show. Credit: Florence Police Department According to Karras, the two had met working together at the Florence Police Department, where Rayborn got his first gig as a cop after leaving his post as a guard at the county jail. Police records show a few days before Christmas 2022, Karras came to Rayborn, saying she was afraid her ex-boyfriend would try to kill a longtime officer in their department who had pulled him over in the past. She told Rayborn that her ex started making threats against their coworker around Halloween while she was working a busy night shift taking 911 calls. Frustrated that she wasn’t responding to him quickly enough, her former partner texted her that he would “blast” her colleague the next time the officer stopped him, she said. Karras had already reported her ex to the police a month earlier after she refused his demands to use her job to find out where officers had allegedly pulled over and arrested his mother in a drug stop. Incensed, he texted her that he would “pull up on them and blast.”  To back up his threats, he sent a photo of a gun outfitted with a drum magazine. After Karras flagged her ex to Rayborn, he documented her reports in official records. Her former partner never acted on his threats, and by the summer, he pleaded guilty to threatening to shoot up Karras’ department. After his start as a cop, Rayborn served six months at the larger Richland Police Department, quickly garnering recognition as an officer who helped those in need. “Bravo,” a supervisor wrote after he revived a woman who had passed out from a suspected drug overdose. Republican Rep. Casey Eure of Saucier was so impressed after Rayborn and a group of officers assisted his teenage daughter with a car issue that he deemed them “Richland’s finest.” Three months after Karras reported Rayborn to the sheriff’s department, accusing him sexual harassment, Sheriff Bailey honored him with another accolade. Bailey presented the deputy with a gold medal in the shape of a sheriff’s star — the Lifesaving Award — for giving first aid to a man who had hurt himself while cleaning a gun.  The Rankin County Sheriff’s Department posted on Facebook that it was “proud to announce” Deputy Michael Cody Rayborn had been honored with the Lifesaving Award from Sheriff Bryan Bailey on Jan. 5, 2026. The announcement came three months after Joanna Karras reported to the agency that the deputy had allegedly sexually harassed her. Credit: Rankin County Sheriff's Department, via Facebook Karras ran across the image on Facebook, where the sheriff’s department posted it was “proud” to announce Rayborn had received the award.  “That, to me, was like the sheriff smacking my face,” Karras said. Call records show that the day after she filed her complaint through the online portal, which the department launched in a package of reforms after the Goon Squad cases, sheriff’s investigators reviewed her allegations and contacted her. But Bailey has the “ultimate authority” under departmental procedures to determine the outcome of misconduct investigations and impose discipline “based on the facts of the case.” He was in the Facebook photo, standing beside Rayborn, applauding. ‘No accountability’: An officer’s career allegedly starts with brutal beginnings At the Rankin County jail, at least seven former inmates said they saw another side to the officer when he was a jail guard in grievances to jail officials, a federal lawsuit and interviews with Mississippi Today. In a federal complaint, one inmate named Rayborn as a part of a pack of guards who allegedly beat him so badly he feared they would one day kill him. Mississippi Today found that during Rayborn’s tenure as a guard from 2017 to 2021, at least four of the seven inmates filed misconduct grievances with jail officials and complaints in federal court accusing him of walking them off camera to dole out brutal beatings, racially discriminating against them and threatening to kill them — sometimes as supervisors stood by — in response to inconveniences and nonviolent infractions. Three more inmates came forward in interviews with Mississippi Today to report that they, too, had experienced or witnessed sexual misconduct or unjustified violence from Rayborn but were too afraid to report it to jail officials. Some were awaiting their day in court and said they feared speaking out could result in harsher sentences. Others said they were afraid of losing their privileges as high-ranking inmates called trusties. Each allegation against Rayborn is contained in reports to jail officials, court records or accounts by alleged witnesses. The Rankin County Adult Detention Center in Brandon. Credit: Rory Doyle for The New York Times Tremblay, the former Vermont police chief and public safety commissioner, said when officers use excessive force or otherwise abuse their power, it should serve as a “red flag” to their department that they may go on to commit sexual misconduct. But when inmates did report Rayborn to the jail for misconduct, records show officials denied their claims in every case reviewed by Mississippi Today but one — when an inmate reported in a 2018 grievance that after he repeatedly asked for tissues, the guard called him a “bitch,” “a stupid MF,” and a “dumb black MF,” referred to the inmate’s “black ass”  and threatened to kill him and his family. Jail records show in response, officials verbally reprimanded and temporarily reassigned Rayborn. In two cases, jail officials denied that any misconduct occurred, even when the inmates said Rayborn attacked them before other officers or the facility’s security cameras. During Rayborn’s final months at the jail in the summer of 2021, one inmate accused facility officials of covering up the guard’s reported brutality. Frederick Waters, now 63, wrote in a grievance that after he was “beaten” by Rayborn and Jordan McQueary, another guard with a documented history of violence against inmates, jail officials locked him in solitary confinement for a month with serious, untreated injuries.  By that fall, jail officials had denied Waters’ grievance, and Rayborn had become a police officer in Florence. According to the guards’ reports, they struck, slapped and grabbed Waters after he called Rayborn a “cocksucker” while numerous officers and a supervisor watched. The inmate wrote he had turned around and insulted the guards because they “pushed” him through a doorway while escorting him. A year after Frederick Waters wrote that Jordan McQueary was one of the guards who had allegedly “beaten” him, security footage shows the officer striking another inmate, Dustin Rives, so hard he broke the man’s jaw on July 18, 2022. A still from the video captures the moments before the altercation. Credit: Rankin County Sheriff's Department The guards alleged that after Waters “spun around in an aggressive manner,” McQueary “struck the inmate first” in the face “to get control of the situation” while Rayborn grabbed him as he continued to “resist.” Numerous other officers reported witnessing the three “fighting” on the ground. After a hearing, Paul Holley — then the department’s legal counsel — ruled the inmate failed to prove he was “beaten” by the two guards. “Whereas there was a physical altercation that transpired, the evidence suggests that this was initiated by Inmate Waters as he disrespected officers and prevented them from closing the door to the dorm,” wrote Holley, who resigned as Sheriff Bailey’s right-hand man in 2023 after the Goon Squad officers’ guilty pleas. Holley did not respond to a request for comment from Mississippi Today. But after reviewing jail records detailing the incident, Corene Kendrick, deputy director of the National Prison Project at the American Civil Liberties Union, called it a dangerous “overreaction” for the guards to strike an unarmed inmate in the head — a form of force that many correctional experts and physicians recommend as a last resort because it can inflict deep, invisible injuries to the brain, one of the body’s softest organs. “The response should not be to fly off the handle and try to prove your manliness by beating the tar out of somebody who just called you a name, but rather, to act as a professional and deescalate the situation,” Kendrick said. “It just sounds like they rubber stamped what the (officers) did and there was no accountability.” Department records and interviews with a former FBI agent show that the Rankin County Sheriff’s Department had evidence of deputies’ violent acts long before the abuses of the “Goon Squad” came to light in 2023. Credit: Rory Doyle for The New York Times Jail records show after a nurse cleared Waters, officials locked him in solitary confinement for assaulting and threatening the guards. But Waters alleged officials put him in lockdown to cover up how much Rayborn and McQueary had hurt him. He wrote in his grievance that the two guards left him with a long list of injuries — a broken nose and finger, two black eyes, facial fractures, a ruptured ear drum and a concussion — but the facility treated none of them. The jail’s medical records stated that Waters sustained only a “small” cut on his nose and cheek, which a nurse cleaned. In jail reports, officers denied that he sustained “serious” injuries. Jarrod Boykin, who was serving a year as a jail trusty, said he witnessed the two guards breaking Waters’ nose and finger. But the jail left those injuries untreated because the facility doesn’t want to take inmates to medical staff while they’re in solitary confinement, according to Boykin.  He told Mississippi Today that for the last five years, he had never spoken publicly about what he saw because Rayborn threatened to have him removed as a trusty, which could have sent him to prison for up to a decade. Jail records show the facility’s security cameras captured the altercation, but the sheriff’s department did not respond to a July public records request seeking footage of the incident. Mississippi Today previously obtained jail surveillance video showing McQueary punching another inmate so hard he broke the man’s jaw in 2022, even though officers denied in jail reports that the inmate sustained “serious” injuries. Afterward, officials locked the man in an isolation cell for 25 days until he developed a deep infection that required surgery, according to jail records. Waters said in solitary confinement, his injuries were forced to heal unseen and untreated. As a result, his broken nose reportedly healed crooked. Waters’ nose appears crooked in his recent mugshot, after he went to state prison for shoplifting and drug possession in June, a week after Rayborn’s simple assault charge from Karras was dismissed. “They should be held accountable for their actions. Society made me pay for what I did,” Waters told Mississippi Today. “They’re no better than I am.” ‘Please help me before they kill me’: A federal lawsuit unearths more reports of violence Other inmates echoed that Rayborn abused his position of authority by doling out threats and beatings to silence people from speaking out about his conduct, and to punish anyone who did. Johnson, the inmate who initiated two civil rights lawsuits against Rayborn, alleged in court records that Rayborn and a group of officers he was suing tried to “kill” him in 2020 after his family posted on Facebook that officers were attacking him in racial assaults. After the post garnered hundreds of shares in just days, Rayborn and two other guards he was suing retaliated against him by walking him away from a security camera so they could “beat” him unseen, Johnson alleged in a federal complaint. He reported that Rayborn punched him in the mouth four times while one guard choked him and another kicked him to the ground. Carvis Johnson wrote in a federal complaint that after his family posted on Facebook on Feb. 4, 2020, that Rankin County jail guards were attacking him in racial assaults, detention officer Michael Cody Rayborn beat him with two other guards who he had an open lawsuit against. Credit: Carvis Johnson via Facebook “Please help me before they kill me,” Johnson’s complaint stated. “I fear for my life at this jail.” Court records show the sheriff’s department settled with Johnson in 2023. In his statement to Mississippi Today, the agency’s attorney, Dare, referred to Rayborn by his middle name and denied that anybody of that name had ever faced a federal civil lawsuit — even though he represented the man against Johnson’s complaints.  Dare did not answer Mississippi Today’s questions about how much the sheriff’s department paid to settle the case, but Johnson stated in court records that he was paid a $30,000 settlement. A couple months after settling with Johnson, the sheriff’s department brought Rayborn on as a deputy. Missing records obscure officer’s track record It remains publicly unknown just how many misconduct complaints the sheriff’s department has dealt with against Rayborn, partly because the agency stated it doesn’t keep records that could shed light on the total, Mississippi Today found. The news organization learned of the issue after Dare initially denied a reporter’s public records request seeking materials that would confirm the total, stating the information was shielded under state law. When the reporter showed Dare a state Ethics Commission ruling that appears to compel the sheriff’s department to release any email notices the agency sent to confirm it received a complaint, Dare replied the department did not retain these “auto-reply” messages and accused the reporter of “harassment.” Dare stopped responding when Mississippi Today raised that the department’s actions seem to conflict with state law, as the Mississippi Department of Archives and History requires counties to wait at least two years before destroying that type of document, and perhaps even longer if it’s involved in an investigation or court case. No arrest, no crime Months after the unwanted attention from Rayborn, Karras said she had grown tired of waiting for the sheriff’s department to deliver the accountability she was seeking. She said Rayborn couldn’t be trusted with a badge, and she decided to take her fight to court. When the judge dismissed the case just a week later, Karras said the experience showed her how difficult it is to hold an officer responsible for sexual misconduct in Mississippi, even with video evidence. Years after the #MeToo movement sparked a national reckoning over the prevalence of sexual harassment, Mississippi is still one of the only states in the country without any law that clearly makes it a crime when adults are generally groped or otherwise touched sexually without their consent, according to Mississippi Today’s nationwide review of state sex-crime laws. Prosecutors, law enforcement officials and lawmakers say because Mississippi doesn’t spell out groping as a crime and define clear punishments, the legal gap can create challenges in holding perpetrators accountable.  “The more we can close the gap, the more we can help prosecutors and victims get more of a measurement that their cases are being taken seriously,” said Kimberly Campbell, a former Democratic state representative for Hinds and Madison counties who sought to pass a bill in 2013 that would’ve punished groping with jail time and a fine. “When we lack it, the victims are left thinking that there’s no recourse.” Without such a law, victims and prosecutors seeking justice for these cases often turn to assault charges that weren’t written to address groping.  Rankin County Court Judge David Morrow Jr. ruled at a hearing on June 10, 2026, that while sheriff’s Deputy Michael Cody Rayborn’s advances toward former Florence police dispatcher Joanna Karras were “unwanted” and “improper,” they did not amount to a simple-assault charge. Credit: Madeline Nguyen/Mississippi Today That’s what Karras found herself doing in June, when she filed a simple assault charge against Rayborn for putting her “in fear of imminent serious bodily harm.”  She recounted in a sworn statement how the deputy’s anger flared as she rejected his sexual advances, until he turned red and sweat dripped down his face. She said that as his touches grew bolder — from holding her hand to grazing up toward her thigh — she was too afraid to physically resist him. To her, the gun and Taser holstered at his hips served as constant reminders of just how much he could hurt her if she shoved his hands off or pushed past him to run away.  “Are you fucking rejecting me,” she recalled Rayborn asking her while leaning forward.  “I was in fear for my life at this point,” she wrote in her sworn statement. Karras told Mississippi Today she was afraid the deputy would become so angry he would snap, grab his gun and shoot her. After reviewing the footage, Judge Morrow ruled differently. While groping often doesn’t leave bodily injuries, state law requires simple assault to involve physical pain. At a minimum, a perpetrator must try to inflict injury on a victim — such as by shooting at them — or put the victim in fear that they’re about to seriously hurt them.  To Morrow, the case didn’t meet that legal standard.  “It has to be a fear of imminent serious bodily harm, not a fear of what might happen in the future,” Morrow ruled at the special hearing that law enforcement officers are guaranteed under state law to determine whether a warrant can be issued for their arrest. “He’s a Rankin County deputy; he’s armed there. But he didn’t reach for a gun, he didn’t reach for a weapon.” Fara Gold, a former Department of Justice prosecutor who specialized in bringing sexual misconduct cases against law enforcement, said officers often don’t need to grab their guns and Tasers to coerce victims because the power that comes with their badge already gives them the “weapon of authority.” That’s why in 2022, Congress made it a federal felony whenever law enforcement officers violate an individual’s civil rights by groping them on their genitals, breasts or inner thighs. Before the change, it was only a misdemeanor if the officer didn’t injure the victim or use a weapon. The new statute removed that barrier, meaning the crime could put an officer in prison for up to 40 years. Gold said while the state charge was dismissed, Rayborn could be federally charged under that law, depending on where he touched Karras. Despite repeated denials of Karras’ allegation from the county court and a state agency, she now plans to pursue federal charges against the deputy or a civil lawsuit. Federal government investigating former employer Karras said that, by speaking out against the deputy, she performed “career suicide” in law enforcement. She set herself against a culture of brotherhood that makes officers reluctant to hold their own accountable, even at the police department where she worked. Now, the federal government is investigating whether the first place Karras turned to — her then-employer, the city of Florence — discriminated against her for reporting that a deputy sexually harassed her. Joanna Karras has accused Rankin County Sheriff’s Deputy Michael Cody Rayborn of sexually harassing her at her former workplace, the Florence Police Department, which is pictured on August 19, 2026. Credit: Madeline Nguyen/Mississippi Today The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the federal agency against workplace discrimination, launched an investigation after Karras resigned from her dream job as a police dispatcher in April. She alleged that Rayborn’s friendship with the city’s police leaders — including the chief — colored how they treated his actions, pushing them to invalidate, bully and ostracize her. As a part of its investigation, the commission could decide as soon as November whether Karras can go ahead with the next step she wants to take against her former employer: suing the city for workplace discrimination. Florence Mayor Gunn declined an interview with Mississippi Today on the city’s behalf, citing “pending litigation.” “However, I do want to say that I genuinely care about the people who work for this city and take all of their concerns and complaints seriously,” Gunn wrote in a statement. “The City vehemently denies any wrongdoing in this matter.” But Karras said that from the moment she reported her accusations that Rayborn sexually harassed her at her workplace, his personal relationship with her superiors, Florence Police Chief Brad Burns and Lt. Brennan Alexander, hung over her head. Their shared work in law enforcement had brought the three officers together, and before the encounter, Rayborn often popped by the station for lunch, according to Karras and two other former employees. Alexander was the one to handle the police department’s initial response to Karras’ sexual harassment report, according to communications between her and city leaders. But Karras felt the lieutenant was approaching the incident like Rayborn’s friend, not her boss, so she escalated the situation up to Mayor Gunn. The week before Florence police dispatcher Joanna Karras said Rankin County Sheriff’s Deputy Michael Cody Rayborn sexually harassed her, Bougie Coffee Company, a cafe by the Florence Police Department, posted a TikTok showing the deputy, left, chatting with her superiors, Lt. Brennan Alexander, right, and Police Chief Brad Burns. Credit: Bougie Coffee Company via TikTok She wrote to the mayor that Alexander prohibited Rayborn from the station only during her shifts, which were scheduled at night, but allowed the deputy to come by during the day because the officers were “friends” and needed to “hang out.” Then, Karras stated, the lieutenant seemed to act as Rayborn’s intermediary, telling her that the deputy — who he described as a “touchy feely” guy — wanted to talk to her about the encounter and explained that the two “joke like that all the time,” which Karras called a “lie.” Less than two weeks later, the mayor initiated a blanket ban against Rayborn, barring him from the police department and neighboring city hall unless he was on official business as a deputy. Florence’s city policy explicitly prohibits sexual harassment of employees. But because Rayborn wasn’t a Florence employee, city attorney Robert Lingold said the administration had limited authority to discipline him. “We couldn’t fire him,” Lingold said. “We couldn’t reprimand him. We couldn’t do anything but ban him from the property.” Fall dragged into winter and then spring, but Karras didn’t feel like the unwelcome treatment by the deputy was behind her. She said for months after the incident, her superiors treated her unfairly by belittling her concerns, until she felt she had to resign. Mississippi Today obtained a letter from her supervisor, Sheena Dee McCrory, that offers a firsthand glimpse into how superiors viewed Karras’ concerns. After Karras sought administrative leave to cope with the fallout of the deputy’s behavior toward her, Chief Burns rejected her request and said she “should get over it and move on,” instead of continuing to “dwell” on the “situation,” McCrory wrote in a letter to Lingold. The chief’s words upset Karras, but McCrory didn’t see a problem with them. “The Administration’s investigation and action taken in response to the Ms. Karras and Deputy Rayborn ‘situation’ was effective, efficient, and handled as discreetly as possible,” McCrory’s letter concluded. Joanna Karras said because the Rankin County Sheriff’s Department decided to keep Deputy Michael Cody Rayborn on the force after she accused him of sexual harassment, she fears every time she sees a sheriff’s car that he’ll be the one driving it. One of the department’s cars is pictured on June 10, 2026. Credit: Madeline Nguyen/Mississippi Today But in the fallout of the incident, the Florence Police Department lost more dispatchers, who felt police leaders treated Karras unfairly for reporting one of their own. Taylor Busby said her superiors’ dismissive attitude toward Rayborn’s conduct pushed her to speed up her plans to leave the department and enroll in the Navy. And George, the coworker who witnessed the end of the deputy’s behavior toward Karras, put in her resignation letter after she felt police leaders also targeted her for supporting Karras’ allegations. After a long night working her last shift at the station in June, she came to Rayborn’s court hearing hoping to testify against him. She was never called to the stand. “How can you feel safe in a space where one of your people, one of your employees, is assaulted on duty in a police department, and admin does nothing but bury it and throw it under the rug?” Busby asked. Nearly a year after the encounter with the deputy, Karras said the anger in his eyes constantly lingers in her mind. She sees a therapist to deal with the psychological toll: a cycle of panic attacks, anxiety and depression. When she steps foot in Rankin County, she fears every time she sees a deputy’s car that Rayborn will be behind the wheel. And five months after she resigned from the Florence Police Department, she still hasn’t been able to pick up another job doing what she loves most: helping people on the other side of 911 calls through the worst moments of their lives. “In the law enforcement realm, it’s taboo to speak out and come forward, and most of the time career-ending,” Karras said. “They should be protecting the victims and not the perpetrators.” ...read more read less