Richmond County, Ga. deputy searched ex-affair partner's plate via Flock 1,639 times, fired

On or about June 25, 2026, Richmond County (Augusta), Georgia Sheriff's Office Deputy Jaquarius Yarbrough was arrested and fired after a criminal investigation found he had improperly accessed the department's Flock license-plate-reader system to track a woman with whom he was having an affair. Investigators said Yarbrough, who was assigned to the Transportation Division and had no legitimate law-enforcement reason to access the system, searched the woman's license plate 1,639 times over several months and admitted he continued monitoring her movements after the relationship ended. He was charged with unlawful retention or use of license-plate-reader data and violation of oath of office, and was booked into the Charles B. Webster Detention Center.

Yarbrough's arrest triggered a broader internal audit of Flock access across the Richmond County Sheriff's Office. Weeks later, that audit led to the firing and arrest of three more employees — Lt. John McKenzie, Investigator Curtis Hoskins, and Deputy Joshua Johnson — for separate unauthorized Flock searches; that episode involved a different date and different actors and is recorded as its own, distinct entry in this archive.

The Flock Safety system lets law-enforcement agencies search a pooled, multi-agency database of license-plate photographs to reconstruct where a vehicle has been. WDEF reported that at least 12 other metro Atlanta law-enforcement officers had also been terminated for similar alleged misconduct as of this reporting, with investigations continuing across the state [2].

Updates

2026-07-30 — RCSO announced new Flock access controls and auditing after deputy firings [3]

In the weeks following Yarbrough's arrest, Richmond County Sheriff Eugene Brantley announced new safeguards for the department's Flock system: searches now require a case number, badge number, and stated reason before a plate can be queried, the department adopted an AI auditing tool to flag abnormal search activity for review, and deputies received updated training with signed acknowledgments limiting the system to legitimate law-enforcement use.