Crime & Safety
Area CHP Officer Suspected of Stealing Nude Photos from DUI Suspect's Phone
A San Ramon woman claims that six photos of her were secretly forwarded from her phone to an unknown number while in she was in custody.
A Dublin-area California Highway Patrol officer is under investigation for allegedly sending nude photos of a DUI suspect from her cellphone to his own phone while the young woman was in custody, court records show.
An investigator from the Contra Costa County District Attorney’s Office is recommending that 35-year-old CHP Officer Sean Harrington be charged with felony computer theft, according to the court records.
Investigators served a search warrant at the officer’s Martinez home on Oct. 16 and seized his cellphone and laptop that contained nude or semi-nude photos, text messages and instant message’s from the cellphone of a 23-year-old San Ramon woman arrested on suspicion of DUI, according to the search warrant.
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The woman, whose name is not being released and is referred to in court documents as Jane Doe, was stopped by Harrington and his CHP partner for an unsafe lane change on Interstate Highway 680 in San Ramon just after midnight on Aug. 29.
Doe failed field sobriety tests and her blood alcohol level was measured at .29 percent, according to court records.
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The officers took the woman to county jail in Martinez and she was later issued a notice to appear in court and released.
According to court records, the woman later noticed that six photos of her had been secretly forwarded from her cellphone to an unknown number in the 707 area code while she was in police custody.
Doe and her attorney, Rick Madsen, provided a statement to the district attorney’s office on Oct. 7 and a judge later issued a search warrant for Harrington’s home.
Neither prosecutors nor a CHP spokeswoman could be reached for comment on the case.
No charges had been filed against Harrington as of this morning.
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This is the second recent report involving Bay Area CHP officers. A North Bay sergeant was arrested last week. Story here: Area CHP Officer, 49, Arrested On Suspicion of Child Porn.
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--Bay City News
--Image via Shutterstock
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