Former APD officer accused of using position to intimidate women into not reporting his abuse

ATLANTA — A former Atlanta police officer is accused of abusing women and then using his position to intimidate them into keeping quiet.

Body camera footage obtained by Channel 2 investigative reporter Mark Winne shows video of Maury Swift’s arrest.

Several women have come forward claiming he attacked them.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis told Channel 2 Action News that Swift was with the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.

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A prosecutor in the Fulton County DA’s office said Maury Swift was charged with domestic violence against two women, but three other women who say Swift attacked them but was never charged plan to testify if he had not entered a plea deal.

One of those women said she hopes women in violent relationships see from this that they can take the power back.

“He punched me in my left eye, once. And then he punched me again. And on the second time, that’s when I felt my eyes swell up,” Krysta McGowan told Channel 2 Action News.

Willis said Swift was a former APD officer and was currently working for the CIA.

“He was a former Atlanta Police Department officer, and I want to emphasize the word ‘former,’” Willis told Winne. “He currently worked for the CIA. The reason that was significant in this case of abuse is because he used it as an intimidation factor, saying that these women had nowhere to go to report the harm that he did to them.”

According to Willis, if Swift believed his positions at APD and the CIA gave him power to prevent two domestic violence victims from getting justice, in the end, he was wrong.

Ultimately, the power belonged to the victims and the criminal justice system.

Deputy Fulton DA Sonya Allen said the message for victims was to “come forward, speak their truth and trust the system.”

Allen told Channel 2 Action News on Tuesday that Swift pled guilty under Georgia’s First Offender Act to aggravated assault strangulation, false imprisonment, criminal damage to property in the second degree, and battery with substantial physical harm related to a June 2020 incident where he attacked a woman he was dating.

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Additionally, Swift pled guilty to a misdemeanor battery charge for a July 2021 incident in which he grabbed another woman he had dated by the neck. Swift was sentenced to three years in prison, followed by 12 years probation.

Swift was charged in a second case while out on bond, DA Willis confirmed to Channel 2 Action News.

“His cases, just so we’re clear, they’re never incidents that happen while on duty. In either of those capacities. The problem is he’s a domestic abuser,” Willis said.

Allen said if the strangulation case had gone to trial, Judge Craig Schwall had already agreed to allow testimony from the three other women Swift allegedly abused over the years while dating them, but for which he was not criminally charged.

“We interviewed those women, they agreed to come forward,” Allen told Channel 2 Action News. The women who could have testified include McGowan.

McGowan said she and Swift were in California, celebrating her birthdays, when he attacked her in a car in 2017 and she managed to flee to safety.

“I just remember praying and trying to figure out how I was going to unbuckle my seatbelt and unlock the car,” McGowan said.

Travis Foreman, Swift’s attorney, said he doesn’t know what federal government agency Swift works for, but that Swift never used his status as a former APD officer, nor as an employee of any government agency, to intimidate anyone. Foreman said that no police officer had ever asked Swift for his side in any of the incidents, adding that in the July 2021 incident, Swift was trying to keep three women from barging into his home.

Foreman said he believes the DA’s office treated Swift unfairly, possibly in part because he was a former police officer, and said he is confident Swift will successfully complete his prison term and probation, meaning his record will eventually be wiped clean.

Willis said Swift’s status as a former APD officer may have been a factor in how he was arrested in the aggravated assault strangulation case. The bodycam video indicates Swift wasn’t even handcuffed until a Fulton County Sheriff’s Office employee insisted on proper procedure as he arrived at the jail.

“He gonna have to have some handcuffs on,” the officer said on bodycam.

“Atlanta Police Department did do their job in making sure that he was prosecuted,” Willis said.

McGowan told Channel 2 Action News that she took her power back from Swift through therapy, educating herself and most importantly, her faith.

“Prayer, number one and reading my Bible and reading the scriptures out loud every day like he heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds,” McGowan said.

An Atlanta police spokesman said an internal investigation was opened into potential policy violations into the way Swift was arrested. Not handcuffing an arrestee would be a violation of APD policy.

He told Channel 2 Action News that the officers who made the arrest were not the investigators who built a successful case against Swift, instead they were officers sent out to make the arrest.

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