Bond Denied For Former Corrections Officer Charged With Rape

ATLANTA, GA — A Fulton County Superior Court judge has denied bond for the former Alabama corrections officer charged with sexual assault in Sandy Springs. Matthew Lee Moore will remain at the Fulton County Jail for the time being, as Judge Craig Schwall Jr. denied bond for the defendant at a May 17 hearing.

Moore is charged by Sandy Springs police with one count each of rape and false imprisonment and two counts each of aggravated sodomy, possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony, aggravated assault to commit rape and aggravated assault in connection to two separate attacks on women in 2010 and 2015.

He was arrested in late March in Alabama in connection to a November 2015 assault on a woman at a hotel and extradited back to Fulton County on April 2. Moore was employed at the St. Clair Correctional Facility in Springville and had been with Alabama Department of Corrections since 2001. That state agency previously told Patch he immediately resigned from his position at the time of his arrest.

A few weeks following Moore's arrest, Sandy Springs police confirmed the former corrections officer was the suspect in a June 2010 assault on a woman at the Extended Stay Atlanta Perimeter Hotel at 1050 Hammond Drive.

Sandy Springs police previously said Moore would arrange to meet victims using Craigslist and Backpage.com, which was shut down earlier this month as the FBI began investigating the website's links to sex trafficking. In the 2010 case, Moore met his victim through an ad he placed on Craigslist. He maintained that same MO with the 2015 case, but used Backpage.com to solicit sexual services from women.

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Following the 2015 case, detectives began researching if similar incidents were reported around the region and submitted DNA taken from the crime scenes to the FBI and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation's Division of Forensic Sciences for testing. Those samples came back as a hit, allegedly tying Moore to the two Sandy Springs cases. Those samples also matched evidence submitted by other jurisdictions for their respective sexual assault incidents.

Moore's DNA profile matched a hit submitted by Cobb County police investigators following a 2010 assault on a woman at an apartment. According to Cobb County arrest warrant signed on April 12, Matthew Lee Moore entered a woman's apartment on Akers Mill Road and assaulted her on Feb. 6, 2010.

The warrant states Moore allegedly entered the apartment unit armed with a handgun, pointed the weapon at the victim, grabbed her by the hair and forced her to perform sexual acts. It also accused Moore of impersonating an officer by entering the unit with a badge and handgun and identifying himself to the victim as a Cobb County police officer.

Cobb County police have also charged Moore with aggravated sodomy, aggravated assault, impersonating an officer, false imprisonment, possession of a firearm during the commission of a crime and home invasion in the first degree. Sgt. Wayne Delk, a spokesperson with the Cobb County Police Department, previously told Patch that Moore apparently met the woman earlier in the day before stopping by her apartment to commit the alleged attack.

Along with Fulton and Cobb counties, Moore is also suspected in committing sexual assaults in Homewood, Alabama (2008); Birmingham, Alabama (2010); and this year in Jupiter, Florida.

Potential victims are asked to contact Sandy Springs Police Detective William Johnson at 770-551-3314.

Image via Fulton County Jail