A MS Coast deputy lied about his work to cover up a double life. Now, he’ll pay for it

Former Harrison County sheriff’s Deputy Ryan Brashear often came across as a respectable, law-abiding man determined to do what he could to make the world a safer place.

On the job, he worked as a deputy assigned to the DEA Drug Task Force and took part in investigations that led to the arrests of suspected criminals.

But Brashear had a secret life he led with multiple women and their children, according to court records and testimony.

He used the excuse of going out of town for narcotics investigations to cover for the time he left one woman and her children to be with the other.

It all caught up with him in October 2021 when one of those women discovered that Brashear — the man she thought she and her children would spend the rest of their lives with — was leading a double life.

That woman was Jennifer Foster, an elementary school teacher in Biloxi, who fell victim to Brashear’s deceit for over nine years before the truth surfaced.

Foster was crushed when she learned the man who professed his love and commitment to her and her three children for so long was someone she didn’t really know.

Information about Brashear and his double life came out in testimony during a two-day civil trial in Harrison County Court before Judge Robin Midcalf.

The Sun Herald attended the trial, reviewed court filings and talked to attorneys involved in the case for this story.

Attorney Scott D. Smith represented the mother of three at the Biloxi trial over allegations in a civil suit filed by Foster against Brashear that sought monetary damages.

The lawsuit accused Brashear of fraudulent and torturous misrepresentation and intentional infliction of emotional and financial distress as a result of his “continuous, reckless, and outrageous acts.”

Foster and Brashear testified at the trial in Biloxi, and a jury ruled in favor of Foster, ordering Brashear to pay $10,000 in damages for what he had done.

At the trial, Brashear tried to downplay his actions, denying any financial liability and saying he often avoided talking about his true feelings because he didn’t like confrontations despite dealing with them almost daily in his job as a law enforcement officer.

Brashear also compared his inability to let go of the relationship with Foster to the same type of hold a heroin addict would have for the drug that feeds the addiction.

His attorney, David Krauss, argued that while Brashear’s actions may have been morally and ethically wrong, his client never married Foster and should not be held financially liable to Foster for sudden financial stress she was in to keep up the payments on the home they shared and the car they owned together.

In addition, Krauss noted that people get hurt when relationships end but said that was still not reason enough for Brashear to be financially liable for anything.

Foster said she and her three girls had suffered emotionally and two of her three children remain in counseling today as a result of the damages Brashear caused them.

Foster, who said she’s already been publicly humiliated by what happened, said she wanted the public to know what had happened to her with Brashear in an attempt to keep him from doing the same thing he did to her and her family to others.

Harrison County Sheriff Troy Peterson confirmed Brashear is no longer employed by the Sheriff’s Department. and that his time there came to an abrupt end. Records pulled by the Sun Herald showed Brashear lost the job in October 2021, shortly after the information about his secret life surfaced.

Brashear confirmed his termination at the trial, but denied it had anything to do with his double life, though he admitted being the subject of an internal affairs investigation over an intimate relationship with a colleague.

On paper, Brashear said, he was fired because he failed to report damage to a mirror on his patrol car.

The trial in Biloxi included various exhibits, including over 20-plus pictures of Brashear and Foster and the three children in Christmas cards year after year or from other events for school or pleasure, from the time he entered their lives when Foster’s children were at a young age.

Brashear was well know in the Sheriff’s Department.

In fact, at the trial Judge Midcalf dismissed one of bailiffs after it came to her attention that he had been talking to Brashear in front of the jury and had failed to disclose that he knew him.

The bailiff, the judge said, indicated he knew Brashear and all about how his job ended amid revelations about his double life.

An officer’s lies and deceit

Foster and Brashear got involved in the summer of 2012 after they met at a Golden Corral restaurant in Gulfport.

By that fall, Brashear had moved many of his belonging, along with his dog, into her rental home in Biloxi.

Soon, Brashear pledged his commitment to a life with Foster and her three young girls.

The relationship continued for several years, and Brashear became a father figure to the children, attending dance recitals, church and school events, and other family activities.

They had portraits made together at Easter egg hunts at Our Lady of Fatima Catholic Church and various other outings with friends, relatives and coworkers.

By 2018, Foster said the couple found a home they decided to buy together through a real estate agent they had signed a contract with.

But weeks before the closing, Brashear went to the rental home the couple had shared, removed his belongings, including his dog, and left Foster a note.

“I’m sorry,” he wrote. “I just can’t.”

Brashear said he never really wanted to buy a home with Foster despite providing pay stubs and other information for them to qualify for a loan to make the purchase.

A renewed commitment

After Brashear took off, Foster said, she was forced to get the real estate agent to redo the paperwork so she could buy the home in her name.

Foster said she didn’t call Brashear to get him to return, accepted the relationship was over and was trying to move on despite her grief.

Then, everything changed.

Just after closing on the new home, Foster found a six-page handwritten letter from Brashear in her mailbox. In it, he pleaded for her forgiveness, pledged his love and commitment to Foster and her girls, and ended the letter by saying, “Marry me.”

Brashear had a family meeting with Foster and her girls before he came back into their lives.

Brashear helped the family move into the new home, started paying his share of the bills, and spent money on buying new home furnishings to show Foster he was again personally and “financially committed” to making the new home their own.

The couple and the three girls lived together as a family, and Brashear did the lawn care and helped with any renovations at the house and more.

He often went out of town for work, but Foster expected that since Brashear was in law enforcement dealing with drug investigations.

By 2020, Foster said Brashear talked her into buying a vehicle together in what she called his “feigned commitment” to her by signing the loan for their Toyotal Rav4.

At the same time, Foster said she and Brashear talked about wedding dates, but she said things kept coming up that would end up conflicting with a potential date, usually because of a conflict with Brashear’s lies about his work schedule and the need to be out of town.

“I trusted him,” Foster said.

A wedding registry, another woman and more

Foster got suspicious in October 2021 when Brashear told her he was going to Quantico, Virginia, for a week for FBI training.

She said she thought it was odd that he was going to Quantico because he had used that excuse to go there for FBI training before that.

Foster said she decided to look at the Facebook account Brashear used under the alias “Rhino Colt,” and soon, her world changed forever.

She said she had never doubted him in the past because he always called, texted several times a day, and sent pictures of himself when he was out of town., even showing her receipts from his trips and alleged drug suspects they had arrested even though she never asked for the information.

There, she saw pictures from another woman posting about buying her wedding dress and tagging Brashear by his alias Facebook account he claimed to use for his job to look up suspects.

She scrolled down the page and found another post from the woman that read, “I love you, Rhino Colt.”

Soon after, Foster found a wedding registry for the pair, family portraits of Brashear with the other woman and her children that were shot exactly like the ones Foster had hanging on her walls of them as a family.

Foster was scrolling through pictures of Brashear with the other woman and her family taken over at least five years when she got a text from Brashear that included a picture of him on a bed in his hotel room with the words, “I love you, and I miss you, Baby.”

Foster did a google search and found the woman’s address and drove there, where she found Brashear’s work vehicle, his personal car and a trailer he often brought to the home he shared with Foster.

She texted Brashear asking him to come outside, but he didn’t respond. She called him, but he didn’t answer.

She looked on Instagram under the woman’s name and discovered that Brashear wasn’t in FBI training but at Disneyland with the other woman and her children instead.

Foster sent a private message to the woman on Facebook and told her who she was and what her relationship was with Brashear.

Both women decided to go public about what Brashear had done to them, and soon Foster said she started receiving private messages from other woman who said Brashear had done the same thing to them.

Despite his lies, Brashear said the other woman in the pictures that Foster found from Disneyland eventually forgave him for his deceit.

What he didn’t mention was anything about any of other women who wrote into Foster to let her know about the same type of experiences they allegedly had with the man they thought was a stellar member of the law enforcement community.

Other than shouting out to the Sun Herald during a break in the trial to say he would never again work in law enforcement, Brashear had little to say after the jury issued its ruling.

Brashear is now the owner of an independent photography business.