A Hall County grand jury returned a child molestation indictment against a former internal affairs officer for the Hall County Sheriff’s Office this week.
Michael D. Nix , 42, of Clermont has been free on $50,000 bond since shortly after his July 9 arrest. A 20-year veteran of the agency and the 2000 Officer of the Year, Nix was fired at the time of his arrest.
Nix was indicted this week on one count of aggravated child molestation, three counts of child molestation and two counts of making false statements.
Authorities say Nix molested a 3-year-old girl while his wife was baby-sitting her at their Holly Springs Road home sometime between November 2008 and July 2009.
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation handled the case after the parents of the girl made a complaint to the sheriff’s office.
Aggravated child molestation carries a mandatory minimum of 25 years in prison. No trial date has been set in the case.
Also this week, the grand jury indicted a former youth pastor accused of molesting children inside a Gainesville church.
Phillip Glenn Terrell, 38, has been in the Forsyth County jail since his April 2007 arrest. Child molestation charges are also pending against Terrell in Forsyth County.
Terrell was a minister of education at Emmanuel Baptist Church on Atlanta Highway. He is accused of molesting a 15-year-old boy between January and December 2006.
Forsyth County officials charged Terrell with aggravated child molestation in an alleged assault on a 12-year-old boy.
The Hall County grand jury indicted Terrell on three counts of aggravated child molestation.
Terrell was previously charged with child molestation in 2001 when he was a detention officer for the Georgia Department of Juvenile Justice in Paulding County, but was acquitted at trial.
The grand jury also indicted a Kennesaw man who came to Gainesville with the intention of having sex with a 14-year-old girl.
John Ethan Michael was arrested in March in a sting conducted by the Hall County Sheriff’s Office after communicating over the Internet with an investigator he thought was a teenager, authorities said.
Michael, 30, was indicted this week on one count of obscene Internet contact with a child.