A deputy chief of the Cartersville Police Department has resigned, a week after he was arrested for paying for what he thought was a prostitute in Florida, authorities said.
The department announced Jason DiPrima’s decision Thursday after he was previously placed on administrative leave.
On Sept. 1, DiPrima was arrested in Polk County, Florida, and charged with soliciting prostitution, lewdness or assignation, Cartersville police said. He began working with the department in 1996.
“He is no longer a police officer in Cartersville, Georgia, and he needs to work on reconstructing his life with his family. He did a very mean, nasty thing to his family and he certainly embarrassed all the people of Cartersville,” Polk County, Florida, Sheriff Grady Judd said during a news conference. “The Cartersville Police Department is a very professional police department in Georgia and they didn’t deserve what Jason (DiPrima) did.”
DiPrima was in Orlando attending an American Polygraph Association seminar and workshop when he responded to an online escort advertisement, Judd said.
He began by exchanging messages with an undercover detective by asking, “Are you available tonight” and “I’d like to come see you — What is your rate?” the day before his arrest, the sheriff’s office said. DiPrima eventually agreed to engage in sexual activities with the undercover detective, the sheriff’s office said, but then told the detective he got “spooked” and asked to see her the next night.
On the day of his arrest, DiPrima reached out to the undercover detective and agreed to go to a location to meet, according to officials.
“He just couldn’t resist the urge to be with our undercover detective who he thought was a high-class prostitute,” Judd said.
He agreed to pay the undercover detective $120 for a half-hour of “full service” sex, the sheriff’s office said. When DiPrima arrived at the location just before midnight, authorities said he confirmed the arrangement by giving the undercover detective $180 and a multi-pack of White Claw Hard Seltzer.
“He’s in one of the undercover vehicles when he shows up at our undercover operation — in the government vehicle — carrying alcoholic beverages,” Judd said. “So ostensibly, this guy has come to have sex with a prostitute while driving the Cartersville police undercover vehicle.”
But that wasn’t DiPrima’s first time soliciting a prostitute in Florida, officials said. He told the undercover detective that he had engaged with another prostitute online for $200 the night before, according to Judd.
DiPrima was arrested and booked into the Polk County Jail. He was released two days later on $500 bond.
His arrest was part of a weeklong human trafficking operation conducted by the Polk sheriff’s office and other law enforcement agencies in the area.
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