Former Nashua Firefighter Agrees To Plea Deals In Child Sexual Abuse Images, Privacy Cases: Follow-Up

MANCHESTER, NH — A former firefighter, who has been in jail for more than a year and a half after being arrested more than three years ago on child sexual abuse images and later for spying on his family, has reached plea deals for his cases.

Patrick Thomas Reardon, 44, of Greenville, was facing nearly two dozen charges in three separate cases.

The first and second cases involved 12 child sexual abuse images, buy, etc., charges after an incident in Hollis and New Boston in April 2023. The Hollis case was moved from Hillsborough County Superior Court South in Nashua to North in Manchester. The third case involved nine violations of privacy, possession of child sexual abuse images, and interception charges from his family’s home in New Boston in May and November 2024, when he was out on bail on the previous charges.

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These charges were only the ones he was indicted on.

According to the affidavits, police accused Reardon of being in possession of hundreds of videos and pictures of child sexual abuse images on his cellphone and in his home.

At least two of the files included girls known to be in the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children database. The girls in the videos were estimated to be between 2 and 3 years old and 15.

In the third case, Reardon’s wife hired a private investigator to search her home after becoming concerned about conversations she was having with him.

The conversation involved another woman, and she believed he should not have known she was visiting the home since he no longer lived there. The private investigator performed a search of the home and discovered a hidden camera in a fully functional double-wall electrical outlet in the lower outlet’s ground hole inside a bedroom of the house, according to documents. After discovering the camera, the complainant checked the Wi-Fi connections on her Comcast account and found an “undefined” device added on Aug. 13, 2024, the day after Reardon left and moved to Greenville.

The report also said he had access to the home through care and visitations.

The third round of charges led to bail revocation and Reardon being sent to jail, where he has been ever since, about 560 days.

Plea Deals

Reardon reached a plea deal with prosecutors on Sept. 8, connected to the charges where he spied on his family, which was agreed to on Monday.

Reardon was sentenced to two three- to seven-year sentences, stand-committed, on one violation-of-privacy charge. A 12-month stand-committed sentence will also be served concurrently on one of the sentences. On two of the wire-trapping charges, he received a second three- to seven-year sentence, stand-committed, concurrent with one another but consecutive to the violation-of-privacy charges. Reardon will receive no earned time credit. The single child sexual abuse images charge from the home spying case came with a three- to six-year sentence, suspended, but served consecutively to the wiretapping charges. A third violation of privacy charge included a three-and-a-half-to-seven-year sentence, while a stalking charge came with a 12-month sentence. Both charges were suspended for 15 years, pending good behavior.

Other conditions included “meaningful participation” in counseling programs, lifetime sex offender registration, no unsupervised contact with any children under 18, and limited use of the Internet for banking and/or work-related purposes. Reardon is also banned from visiting “dark web” websites or using “dark web browsers” such as the BitTorrent Network.

Reardon, when released, will be banned from having contact with his wife and children, shall not come within 500 feet of them as part of his parole, and shall not enter or remain in a premises where they are located.

The second and third pleas, on the two original 2023 child sexual abuse image possession charges, will be held on Nov. 5.

Reardon and prosecutors agreed to four-to-15 years, stand committed, in prison, on three child sexual abuse image charges connected to the New Boston second case. The sentences are concurrent but consecutive to the wire-tapping charges. Three years of the sentence could be suspended if he successfully completes sex offender treatment programming. In the Hollis case, on two of the child sexual abuse image charges, he received a seven-and-a-half to 15-year sentence, suspended with good behavior. The sentences are concurrent with the wire-tapping charges but consecutive.

Altogether, Reardon should be expected to serve somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 years, with three years potentially shaved off the sentence due to sex offender treatment. The suspended sentences will last 15 years.

All the other charges will be nolle prossed, according to court documents.

According to online posts, Reardon was a member of the Nashua Fire Department for about nine years and earned a little more than $70,000 annually. He also owned a plumbing and heating company in New Boston.

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