Cop Accused Of Stealing, Spreading Nude Photos From DUI Suspect’s Phone

A California Highway Patrol officer is in hot water after allegedly possessing nude photos from a DUI suspect’s smartphone, The Huffington Post is reporting.

Sean Harrington, who has been with the California Highway Patrol for five years, is facing charges of felony computer theft, according to The Spreadit, for allegedly forwarding six nude and semi-nude photos of the suspect from her smartphone to himself.

On August 29, Sean Harrington and his partner pulled over an unnamed 23-year-old woman (we’ll call her Jane Doe for the rest of this post) for making an unsafe lane change in Contra Costa County, California. Ms. Doe failed field sobriety tests, and her Blood Alcohol Content was.29 — more than three times the legal limit. She was arrested and taken to jail.

At some point during the stop, Officer Harrington requested Jane Doe’s smartphone password, in order to get the telephone number of someone she wanted to call, which she gave. Several days later, Jane Doe noticed that there had been activity on her iCloud account. After some detective work, Ms. Doe learned that six photos from her smartphone had been sent to a telephone number with the 707 area code — the telephone number belonging to Officer Harrington — while she was in jail and without access to her phone.

An investigation into the alleged nude photo theft revealed that Officer Harrington had shared the nude photos of the suspect with other officers. The Contra Costa County District Attorney’s office searched Harrington’s home and removed several computers, an iPad, and a cellphone. Investigators found photos, text messages, and instant messages from the suspect’s phone on Harrington’s devices.

Deputy District Attorney Barry Grove told the Contra Costa Times that the investigation is coming to a close, and that charges may be coming soon.

“We’ve been investigating this for quite some time, the investigation is coming to a conclusion and we expect to make a charging decision this week.”

For her part, the DUI charges against Ms. Doe have been dropped, according to Canada Journal, due to the alleged nude photo incident.

As of this post, it is not known if any other California Highway Patrol officers are being investigated as part of the nude photo theft, or if Harrington has been found to be in possession of other stolen nude photos of female suspects.

[Image courtesy of: Flick River]