A former Carter County deputy is facing charges related to what officials are terming “inappropriate conduct” while he was an officer.

On Feb. 2, Carter County Sheriff’s Office Capt. Jeff Markland served Corban Lipscomb, 26, of Johnson City, with a criminal summons charging him with one count of tampering with governmental records. Lipscomb is scheduled to appear in Carter County General Sessions Court on March 12 to answer the charge against him.

According to court documents, the charge against Lipscomb stems from an internal investigation launched in March 2017 by the Carter County Sheriff’s Office into a complaint they received against Lipscomb while he was a deputy with the department.

The woman who filed the complaint said she first met Lipscomb in May 2016 when he responded to a prowler call at her residence.

“She stated that since that time he had been sending her inappropriate messages,” Markland said in the Affidavit of Complaint against Lipscomb. “She went on to say that Lipscomb had advised her that he had taken care of an active warrant for failure to appear that she had on file at the Carter County Sheriff’s Office.”

“During the course of the internal investigation (the woman) provided copies of the messages on her phone of the conversations between her and Lipscomb,” Markland continued. “A review of those messages revealed that on January 31, 2017, at 8:35 a.m., Lipscomb had messaged (the woman) and stated ‘Hey I’m about to swing by your house to try that warrant so I can mark you down as no longer living there so when you say the cop car it’s me. Upon reviewing the Carter County Sheriff’s Office reporting system it was found that Lipscomb had gone into the system on January 31, 2017, at 9:41 a.m. and put in the comments on (the woman’s) warrant that ‘Does not live at this address. Male subject at residence states that she took out an OOP and then moved.’”

After reviewing the case and the evidence, Markland said he filed a charge of tampering with governmental records against Lipscomb. Under state law, that charge is classified as a “Class A Misdemeanor.”

Lipscomb’s employment with the department was terminated as a result of the complaint against him.