Two Sedgwick County deputies who lied while being investigated for allegedly having sex with a civilian employee while they were on duty have resigned under investigation, the sheriff’s office said.

The sheriff’s office started its investigation into the matter in December and ended it last month. Five deputies were alleged to have had sex with the employee.

In an email, sheriff’s office spokesperson Robin Busch said two deputies and a civilian employee gave false statements and tried to “intentionally deceive investigators.”

Those three employees all resigned during the investigation.

KWCH first reported the resignations.

Lt. Nathan Gibbs said some of the alleged acts happened when deputies were on duty. The civilian employee was not on duty, he said. The sheriff’s office would not say where the alleged on-duty incidents occurred.

All of the deputies involved worked the overnight third shift.

Gibbs said he thought some or all of the other three deputies still with the department were not disciplined because they had been off duty during the alleged acts. Gibbs was traveling Friday and didn’t immediately have details.

But even the deputies who allegedly had sex while on duty would not have been fired on a first offense, he said, adding that it would have likely been a reprimand or suspension under the conduct unbecoming policy.

“To my knowledge, there is not a specific policy saying that you can’t engage in that type of behavior while on duty cause most people wouldn’t do that,” he said. “So it’s not something that would normally come up in a policy.”

Lying, however, can cause officers to lose their certification. It also would require the officers to be on a Brady-Giglio list kept by the Sedgwick County District Attorney’s Office. Federal law requires that office to keep a list of officers who have policy violations that could call into question their credibility as a witness in a trial.

The deputies who resigned had been on patrol for around two years, Gibbs said. He said the civilian employee hadn’t been with the department long, but he was unsure exactly how long.

All of the people involved have or had been with the department between one and five years, Busch said.

Officers facing possible termination will often resign. Three sheriff’s deputies left under investigation after racist and inappropriate text messages were found on one of the deputy’s phones in April 2021.