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Dept. of Juvenile Justice cadet resigns, accused of inappropriate relationship with minor

A cadet with the Department of Juvenile Justice has resigned amid allegations she had a sexually inappropriate relationship with a boy under the age of 16.

“It’s actually quite disturbing," said Detective Ebony Johnson with East Point police.

Police said Lasondra Deriso, 23, quit on May 2, the day after someone tipped off state investigators that she was sleeping with an inmate after he was released from the Sumter
Youth Development Campus in Americus.

“She was a cadet and the minor was actually an inmate at the youth detention center the cadet was working at,” Johnson said.

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Johnson said she and her team learned Deriso and the boy, who was wearing an ankle monitor, were hiding out at a Quality Inn along Washington Road.

Johnson said Deriso did not say if the relationship the two were engaged in was sexual. Johnson said that, when they first interrogated Deriso, she said the pair were friends and chatted over Facebook.

"She stuck with the fact that she did not know the age of the minor," Johnson said.

When they brought the minor in for questioning, he told an entirely different story.

Investigators said the minor told them Deriso would drive nearly 200 miles from Americus to have sexual relations with the boy and they would stay together at a hotel for days.

Detectives said they are continuing to investigate this case.

The teen is staying with his parents.