In the past two years, a Macon-Bibb County firefighter has pleaded guilty twice to striking his child’s mother in the face, causing bruising and swelling.

The first time, 25-year-old Vonriquez Maketta Durham agreed to enter a domestic violence counseling program, and the charges subsequently were dismissed, according to Bibb County State Court records.

In September 2011, after the second charge, he was sentenced to a year on probation.

Within a month of his sentencing, Durham was jailed for nearly two weeks on new family violence charges that later were dismissed, according to the Bibb County Sheriff’s Office.

When The Telegraph reviewed Durham’s personnel file Wednesday, however, it didn’t include a disciplinary notice on any of the family violence charges -- or a reprimand for his not showing up for work.

A Telegraph inspection of police reports, court records and firefighter personnel records showed that Durham isn’t the only firefighter who’s been charged with a crime -- or convicted -- and is still on the job.

While some firefighters’ files showed that they’d been disciplined after being charged with crimes, other files contained no reference at all to alleged offenses. A sampling of those firefighters’ files showed that the majority still are at work.

Multiple calls Friday to the phone number listed for Durham were not answered.

Durham’s sentencing came two days after Fire Chief Marvin Riggins announced disciplinary action against eight firefighters in connection with a firehouse prank caught on video that showed a masked man threatening firefighters with what appeared to be a gun. A sheriff’s office review concluded that no crime was committed. One of those firefighters was recommended for termination. Two were demoted and five were suspended for varying lengths of time. One supervisor was issued a counseling statement, while a second received a written reprimand.

Riggins declined to field questions about disciplinary practices and the records inspected by The Telegraph in a face-to-face interview this week. City officials also declined to comment on specific firefighters’ personnel matters.

On Friday, however, mayoral spokesman Clay Murphey quoted Riggins as saying “because the public trusts us to come into their homes at moments of crisis, we hold ourselves to a higher standard.”

But “every case is based on the merits of that individual instance and previous history,” Murphey said, quoting Riggins.

The city doesn’t have a system in place to keep tabs on whether firefighters are charged with a crime after they’ve been hired, Ben Hubbard, Macon’s human resources director, said Friday.

It’s the responsibility of city employees who are “arrested, bound over to a grand jury, charged by accusation or indicted for any criminal offense” to report the information to their department head within five days, according to a copy of employee conduct and discipline guidelines provided by Hubbard.

Firefighters who don’t notify the department are subject to “serious disciplinary action,” Murphey quoted Riggins as saying.

Department heads, in turn, are required to report any criminal charges to the mayor and chief administrative officer. If the crime is a felony or a “serious misdemeanor,” the department head and director of personnel must consult with the city attorney to determine the “appropriate status” of the employee while the criminal charges are pending, according to the guidelines.

If the city or fire department is aware that a firefighter has been charged with a crime or convicted, discretion is used to determine whether the firefighter is reprimanded, Hubbard said.

If the conduct that resulted in a criminal charge is unrelated to employment with the city and isn’t likely to damage “the employment relationship,” the employee should usually be allowed to continue working, according to the guidelines.

If the conduct doesn’t directly relate to the employee’s work duties but is “of a serious and aggravated nature” that interferes with the employer-employee relationship or embarrass the city, the employee can be suspended while the charges are pending.

A look at other files

In The Telegraph’s review of several personnel files for firefighters with arrests on record, some files had no documentation regarding any arrest. In others, some charges were reflected in reprimands, while there was no mention of other arrests.

One firefighter, Ralphel Adams, was notified June 26, 2009, of his “voluntary termination” due to five unexcused absences, according to a letter in his file.

Bibb County jail records show that the 34-year-old Adams was charged with murder June 12, 2009, in the beating death of 31-year-old Robert Saxby. He was released from jail Feb. 18, 2010. Grand jurors later voted not to indict Adams and others who had been charged in the case.

A 2007 family violence-related battery case against Adams was dismissed in 2008, according to State Court records.

Before his hiring in 2007, Adams had pleaded guilty to carrying a concealed weapon in 2001, according to court records.

Adams’ personnel file doesn’t mention any of the arrests. An attempt to contact Adams on Friday was unsuccessful.

The file of another firefighter, 41-year-old Jerald Giles, doesn’t include any documentation related to a 2009 allegation that he tried to steal metal from property where he’d responded to a tree fire in Lizella while working the previous night.

The son of the property owner told Bibb deputies that he had confronted the off-duty firefighter as Giles was leaving the property and had steel worth $2,500 loaded onto his trailer. Giles returned the metal when asked and said that he thought it was trash, according to a sheriff’s office report.

Giles is reported to have said that he had noticed what he thought was trash near a storage building while responding to the fire and that he hauls trash for people when he’s not working at the fire department. He’d returned to see if the property owners wanted him to remove the trash, according to the report.

Giles, hired in 2004, was charged with criminal trespass and theft in the week after the incident, but prosecutors later dismissed the charges.

In an April 25, 2011, letter, Riggins relieved Giles of duty until he could acquire a driver’s license so he could drive back and forth to work. No information was included in the file on why Giles didn’t have a license.

Hubbard said firefighters are required to have a license.

Personnel records show Giles is still an employee. An attempt to reach Giles on Friday was unsuccessful.

Family violence charges still are pending against 31-year-old firefighter Julian Gainey, a firefighter since 2007.

Gainey is accused of battery and criminal trespass, according to Bibb County State Court records.

Cases from 2010 charging Gainey with criminal trespass, family violence-related battery and family violence-related simple battery were dismissed because of a missing witness, according to the records.

Although his personnel file doesn’t mention the family violence charges, an Oct. 23, 2009, disciplinary notice was issued suspending Gainey for three days for his being charged with driving under the influence of alcohol earlier that same day.

An attempt to reach Gainey on Friday also was unsuccessful.

To contact writer Amy Leigh Womack, call 744-4398.