CHEATHAM COUNTY, Tenn. (WKRN) -- A Cheatham County constable, sworn to uphold the law, was taken into custody Thursday morning.

Armed with a warrant, the Ashland City Police Department made contact with 48-year-old Jack Sanders Jr. on Thursday, May 15 in the courthouse, where he was in court on other charges related to a violation of an order of protection against him. From there, he was walked down the hallway into the county jail.

According to the Tennessee Constables' Association, "Constables are citizen elected, sworn, bonded, conservators of the peace and are vested with all the power and authority belonging to the office of Constable by Common Law. Constables have full powers of arrest under Tennessee Code Annotated Title 8, Chapter 10. They are charged with keeping the peace and with the enforcement of the laws of the state, county, and its cities."

The association's website lists Sanders as the constable for District 2 in Cheatham County since 2022. However, an executive officer for the Tennessee Constables' Association said Sanders was not an active member of the organization.

Based on the arrest affidavit, Sanders was charged with unlawful exposure. He reportedly posted explicit pictures of a woman with whom he was in a relationship on a public website without her consent.

According to legal database Justia, unlawful exposure in Tennessee is defined as distribution, with the intent to cause emotional distress, of an image of the intimate part(s) of another identifiable person or an image of an identifiable person engaged in sexually explicit conduct, but the image was captured under circumstances where the parties agreed or understood that it would remain private, leading to emotional distress for the person depicted in the image. It's a Class A misdemeanor that can carry up to a year in jail.

News 2 reached out to Sanders for comment while he was in the Cheatham County Jail, but he declined to talk. Officials said he has already bonded out of jail and is due in court on June 18.

News 2 asked community members to share their thoughts on the arrest.

"If he's broke the law, then he should be arrested...they're supposed to be upholding the law," one woman shopping at Walmart said.

When told of the allegations against Sanders, Jamie Pardue said, "That is awful. That's just absolutely disgusting."

The woman shopping with her, Evelyn Sparkman, questioned what the constable was thinking: "As a Cheatham County resident, he needs to be prosecuted because he is an official of the county and state, and hey, he's not showing a good example for other officers. My question is, what was in his thoughts when he knew down the line he would get caught? I mean, that doesn't make any sense, so the man's got a problem."

No additional details have been released about Sanders' case.

News Source : https://www.wkrn.com/news/local-news/cheatham-county-constable-arrested-for-unlawful-exposure/