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In November 2025, we reported on the Forsyth County Commission and their apparent use of one or more private Facebook pages to carry out private communications outside the public eye.

The "private" Facebook page was apparently hidden from view by certain parties including "The Georgia Record" staff, but was found by using third-parties view of Facebook:

Our concerns along with concerns of others eventually prompted several ethics complaints against four Forsyth County Commissioners, Kerry Hill, Laura Semanson, Alfred John and Mendy Moore. 

One complaint stemmed from the lack of response to an overwhelming number of unfulfilled or partially fulfilled Open Records Requests, now numbering in the upper 300's. Last week, the Georgia Attorney General’s office stepped in to mediate the complaint and require Forsyth County to administer each complaint separately and completely.

On January 12, 2026, the Complainant submitted an amended ethics complaint, which was issued to consolidate certain previous requests into one. 

That amended Complaint was sent via email to each of the four named commissioners, with subsequent personal service to those Commissioners the next day.

The Deletions Begin

Based on a review of Microsoft Audit Logs supplied to the ethics complainant through Open Records requests, the data shows that less than 24 hours after receiving the email notification of the amended Complaint, sent with a legal notice to preserve all documents, at least one of the Commissioners, Laura Semanson, began several sessions of deleting files from her county email on three IP addresses.

JAN 13 — 12:15 AM  Midnight session: 61+ items deleted in under two minutes. The ethics complaint was filed hours before on this same calendar date. 

JAN 13 — 3:55 PM  HARD DELETE — "Quarterly Updates -LS/DM" — permanently and irrecoverably purged the same day the complaint was received. Also soft-deleted twice in the same session. IP: 12.13.22.66 / MSExchangeRPC desktop. 

JAN 14  HARD DELETE — "RE: Follow-up Regarding Rezoning ZA4269 and Piney Grove Road Study" — the core subject matter of the complaint, deleted THREE TIMES in one day. Also deleted: BOC Work Session Agenda PDF, Piney Grove Town Hall recording. 

JAN 16 — 12:42 AM  Second anomalous midnight session: 37 deletions from IP 174.209.200.162 — an address that appears nowhere else in the entire audit log. Never before. Never after. 

JAN 21 — 7:18 PM  Evening before the BOC meeting: 106 operations in 18 minutes — 88 deletions, 13 folder moves organizing citizen objection emails by zoning case before the public vote. One email moved: "OBJECTION to CP250058" — the very permit on the next day's agenda. 

JAN 22 — 10:32 PM  RECOVERABLE ITEMS PURGE — the most serious event. Four records permanently destroyed by purging the Recoverable Items folder — Microsoft Exchange's last-resort backup layer. 15.5 hours after ethics panel notice review. IP: 12.13.22.66. 

JAN 30 — 5:01 PM  Fourth anomalous IP (174.195.39.2) — never seen before or after — executes 114 consecutive deletions in exactly 9 minutes. The entire inbox, cleared.

Summary of Semanson Deletions

SOURCE: MICROSOFT 365 EXCHANGE AUDIT LOG — ORR-2026-675 — PRODUCED BY FORSYTH COUNTY 

715 total deletion events in January 2026 alone. 

517 occurred on or after the date the ethics complaint was filed and the legal hold was served. 

31 were permanent hard deletes — irrecoverable, bypassing every safeguard. 

147 occurred before 7 AM or after 9 PM. 

8 emails from Forsyth County Open Records Clerk requesting records permanent deleted indicating an intention to ignore legal Open Records Requests.

4 separate anomalous IP addresses appear in this log, each exclusively during a mass-deletion session, never before and never after. Four different devices or locations, each used for one purpose. 

Under Georgia spoliation law, intentional destruction of evidence after written notice gives rise to a legal inference that the destroyed records were unfavorable to the person who destroyed them. Silman v. Assocs. First Capital Corp., 268 Ga. App. 764 (2004).  O.C.G.A. § 16-10-94 — tampering with evidence in an official proceeding — may be pursued as a felony 

Critics are calling for stepped up investigations by State authorities and the Attorney General’s office regarding actions of Forsyth County officials and the lack of response, or unlawful deletions of documents subject to pending Open Records requests.

Commissioner Kerry Hill Denied Knowledge of Ethics Complaints

In January of this year, when asked about Ethics Complaints and Attorney General office involvement, Kerry Hill, one of the Commissioners named in the Complaints, answered that she was unaware of any complaints, saying “Not as far as I know.”  

It was Kerry Hill herself who moved to approve a consent agenda, during a Commission meeting on December 4^th, to employ an outside attorney to assist with the Ethics complaint. A month later Hill denied knowledge of an Ethics complaint in front of a roomful of citizens.

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