Former Georgia Deputy Claims He Was Forced Out for Wearing ‘Afro’ Wig

Former DeKalb deputy Antonio Perryman told Atlanta’s WSB-TV on Tuesday that he’s “hurt” after two decades of service.

Perryman was just three days shy of his 20-year retirement and decided to cap it off by directing traffic outside the courthouse in a wig.  “I said, ‘Hey, you know, let me make people happy, you know? Do something a little different.’ So I put on the Afro wig. Neither time I was out there did I not do my job duties,” Perryman said.

“I was later informed by Chief Maddox that she and the sheriff were totally upset over the Afro wig and told me that I disgraced the uniform,” Perryman explained. “When she told me that, I just got numb. Like ‘I disgraced the uniform?’ And in my mind, I’m here saying that we got a sheriff running through Piedmont Park from the police like it’s an episode of ‘Cops.'”

He attributes his dismissal to hypocritical behavior by the sheriff, caused by his own precarious position in the public eye. Sheriff Jeffrey Mann was charged with exposing himself in a public park. He pled guilty to both “obstruction” and “prohibited behavior.”

At the time, he insisted that he wanted to remain in his position. “I enjoy being their sheriff,” Mann told reporters. “And I think I should be judged not by one error, one lapse of judgment, but what I have done as sheriff for the last four years.”

And while the early ouster is not expected to affect Perryman’s pension, it will remain on his record. “My plan was to finish with the DeKalb County Sheriff’s Office with 20 years of service and I got robbed from that,” he said. The DeKalb Sheriff’s Office has thus far declined to comment.