The waitress at the center of the Chatham County Sheriff’s recent tirade against IHOP on social media is a convicted sex offender who pleaded guilty to sex trafficking and was recently incarcerated in the Chatham County Jail.
On January 7, Chatham County Sheriff Richard Coleman took to Facebook Live on the official Chatham County Sheriff’s Office Facebook page to discuss a supposed investigation into the IHOP on Gateway Boulevard in Chatham County. The livestream came in the middle of the investigation into the wage dispute, which is traditionally managed by the Georgia Department of Labor.
In his video, Coleman stated he was eating when he was approached by a waitress who was in tears over not being paid for work she was carrying out. He stated she had put in 80 hours and ‘had not received a paycheck.’
Coleman explained that the waitress began to get ‘very aggressive’ in the restaurant and he had to have someone calm her down because he didn’t want her to go to jail. He said he instructed her to come to the Sheriff’s Office and file a police report, which she later did, but that the woman was fired after he left the restaurant. (Note: It is unclear if the woman was fired because of the ‘very aggressive’ incident Coleman referenced or for some other reason). Coleman then called the manager of the restaurant a coward, despite managers not being responsible for payroll matters.
In the January 7 video, Coleman said he was going to send investigators to talk to him [the manager] and go through their records, indicating his video was made entirely off of the complaint made by the woman and before any investigation had been conducted.
“We’re gonna get warrants for everything, but we’re gonna see what’s really going on,” Coleman stated. This was furthered by Coleman’s use of the manager’s first name without knowledge of his last name, only “Mister Victor, whoever you are.”
Coleman continued, “When we find out whatchu doing, I hope that you have not committed an act of Theft by Services or Theft by Conversion or whatever charges they lead to…” He went on to say that his investigators would be talking to him whether voluntarily or involuntarily because he’s ‘coming for [the manager].’
Nevertheless, the video traveled far and wide and even garnered traction in the Atlanta media market, with some asking why a county sheriff would post about the details of an ongoing investigation or meddle in the civil side of a wage dispute. Others asked why he appeared so angry in his video, as if he was personally impacted.
The Waitress
A subsequent share of the Facebook Live was made by ‘Princess Patterson’ with a link to a GoFundMe for Konchetta Patterson. Another share of the post tags ‘Princess Patterson’ in the post and includes the Ca$hApp details for Konchetta Patterson from a self-identified friend of Patterson. The post states Patterson was ‘recently fired and is going through a really hard moment.’
The link to the actual GoFundMe states Patterson was fired from IHOP on December 31 and she needed $900 to ‘stay housed.’ The GoFundMe, however, was created the day Patterson met with deputies from the Sheriff’s Office last week, not when she was fired.
More recently, a source close to Coleman claimed that the woman was actually complaining that she was short $70 in her check, not that she actually didn’t get paid for working 80 hours. Any documents pertaining to the report would be shielded from the Open Records Act due to an ongoing investigation.
Patterson is also a familiar face to law enforcement.
A review of court records reveal that 37-year-old Patterson is a convicted felon who pleaded guilty in 2022 to a number of sexual offenses, including Trafficking Persons for Sexual Servitude, Child Pornography, three counts of Sexual Exploitation of Children. Patterson is on the Georgia Sex Offender Registry.
According to the indictment, Patterson and her co-conspirators subjected three female victims under the age of 18 to sexual servitude in November and December 2016. Additionally, court records indicate Patterson was also charged with computer pornography for “repeatedly” advertising the physical characteristics of the same minor child “for the purpose of offering sexual conduct with the child.” The sexual exploitation of children charge arose from publishing and distributing pictures of a minor engaged in sexual conduct.
Ultimately, Patterson received a sentence of 15 years on probation after receiving credit for the time served in jail ahead of her sentence dating back to February 2017.
Patterson’s arrest by the Garden City Police Department, including her booking photo, was widely publicized with media coverage in the Savannah Morning News and WJCL. Local law enforcement also made posts offering rewards to the tipster who provided the information to police, breaking up what authorities said was a ‘sex trafficking business’ operating out of a motel and on BackPage.
According to court records, Patterson is also a routine probation violator with probation revocations filed on her in:
- June 2022 for drug use and for not residing at the address on file with the sex offender registry,
- April 2023 for drug use and for failing to register as a Sex Offender in Muscogee County, GA (she was convicted of this offense). She received credit for time served in jail on these matters and was returned to probation.
- June 2024, in which case she was ordered to report to the Savannah Day Reporting Center for 28 days, but failed to do so.
- September 2025 for failing to report to probation 27 times in a single year, for testing positive for drugs 34 times between August 2024 and August 2025, and for again failing to register as a sex offender.
In September 2025, she was incarcerated again for her probation violations. After admitting to her violations in open court, Judge Karpf again ordered her into the next available 28-day program at the Chatham County Jail.
Notably, TheGeorgiaVirtue.com was contacted after the IHOP video regarding pay practices within the Chatham County Sheriff’s Office. Those employees stated that some employees are not being paid properly and are instead being made to take comp time. Inquiries into these practices are ongoing.
