Federal judge had sex in her chambers with an Atlanta police officer

A federal judge based in Georgia was formally found to have committed judicial misconduct after a national oversight body confirmed the judge had a two-year extramarital affair with a high-ranking police officer — including having sex in the judge’s chambers during work hours while staff were nearby.

What happened: The Committee on Judicial Conduct and Disability of the Judicial Conference of the United States — the top body in the country overseeing federal judge behavior — upheld misconduct findings against the judge on May 22. The findings cover three separate violations:

• Having a roughly two-year affair with a high-ranking police officer and having sex in the judge’s chambers during work hours, within earshot of staff
• Attending a campaign event for a district attorney, which federal judges are prohibited from doing
• Lying to two chief judges when first confronted with the allegations

What’s confirmed: The judge was not named in the official documents. Bloomberg Law has identified the judge as Eleanor Ross, who sits on the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia and was appointed by President Obama. The officer has been identified by Bloomberg Law as Atlanta Police Department Deputy Chief Kelley Collier, who commands the community services division. Neither identification has been officially confirmed by the court or law enforcement.

The affair: According to the oversight committee’s findings, the affair lasted from approximately October 2023 through October 2025. During that time, the officer — described as a commander at a large police department — visited the judge’s chambers frequently, generally around lunchtime, in uniform. At least three former law clerks heard sounds of intimate contact coming from the judge’s closed office. One clerk had to leave work for the day. Another lost sleep and had trouble focusing. A third said the experience made the clerk “very uncomfortable.”

The false statements: When a law clerk first reported the misconduct to the district’s chief judge in September 2025, the judge denied everything. In written responses to two chief judges, the judge called the allegations “outrageous” and “baseless,” denied having sex in the courthouse, and claimed not to know who the allegations were about.

The judge later admitted those statements were false, saying shock, humiliation, and fear about the impact on a “troubled marriage” drove the initial denials. The judge recanted on October 10, 2025 — 11 days after the first denial.

The political event: The judge also admitted attending a campaign event for a district attorney. Federal judges are barred from attending events sponsored by political candidates or organizations. The judge said the intent was only to reconnect with former colleagues at what was described as a private gathering, and that no political speeches were made and no donations were given. The oversight committee found the event was still part of a larger campaign function and constituted misconduct.

The sanction: The judge received a private reprimand — a formal finding of wrongdoing that is not made public by the judiciary. The judge also agreed to write apology letters to the six former law clerks interviewed during the investigation, give up any future eligibility to serve as chief judge, and permanently step back from serving on any Judicial Conference committee. The judge did not challenge the sanction. The oversight committee said a public reprimand was considered but rejected, in part because the judge ended the affair, admitted the misconduct, and had otherwise served the court well.

APD’s response: The Atlanta Police Department said it has launched an investigation to determine whether the officer named in the federal oversight body’s document is an APD employee, but has not yet officially named the officer.

Police departments routinely announce investigations into their own without naming the officers being investigated and also routinely do not announce the findings of those investigations to the public. Government transparency advocates point to this as a driving factor in public distrust of police departments.

The path forward: The judge remains on the bench. Because the reprimand is private, the judiciary will not publish it.