Prosecutors in Contra Costa County, directly across the bay from San Francisco, have filed criminal felony charges against a former California Highway Patrol (CHP) officer, Sean Harrington, who is accused of seizing and distributing racy photos copied from arrestees’ phones.
Harrington's attorney, Michael Rains, told a local NBC affiliate that his client has resigned from the CHP and was sorry for what he has done. Rains, who has a longstanding history of representing Bay Area law enforcement, did not immediately respond to Ars' request for comment.
"This behavior is really not defensible,” Rains told NBC Bay Area. “It is impulsive, immature and inappropriate in every sense of the word.”
Rains sent an e-mailed statement to Ars confirming that his client had resigned from the CHP but did not respond to direct questions.
"Former Officer Harrington offers his deepest apologies to the women whose cellular telephones were accessed or reviewed," Rains wrote. "Former Officer Harrington is embarrassed to have tarnished the reputation of the California Highway Patrol and law enforcement generally."
The case emerged from a woman, referred to in court documents as “Jane Doe #1,” who came forward to local authorities in early October after being briefly arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence (DUI) of alcohol in late August 2014 in San Ramon, California.
Doe, who handed over her phone and gave the password to her phone when one of the officers requested it, later discovered that this same officer sent photos of her topless and in her underwear from her iPhone to his own. Investigators also discovered a similar incident involving a "Jane Doe #2," who was pulled over in Livermore in early August 2014.
On Friday, Harrington was formally charged with two counts of "theft and copying of computer data," a felony. He did not respond to Ars’ request for comment by e-mail and text message.
Doe's arrest came just two months after the unanimous Supreme Court decision, Riley v. California, which found that law enforcement cannot search or seize an arrested person's phone without a warrant.
Not the first time
Ars received two search warrants and affidavits from an anonymous source: one warrant was issued for Harrington’s house in Martinez, and one was issued for another CHP officer, Robert Hazelwood, for his Samsung Galaxy S5 phone.
According to the affidavit, investigators turned up evidence that Hazelwood and Harrington have exchanged such images on at least two occasions involving two different female arrestees. (In accordance with an agreement from this source, Ars is not publishing the warrants but is quoting from them.)
According to the Hazelwood warrant, Harrington was interviewed by the Contra Costa County District Attorney’s office. Harrington admitted to an investigator “that he stole five photographs” from Doe #1 and that he had forwarded “at least one” to Hazelwood.
That warrant continues:
Harrington said this was not the first time he had unlawfully accessed the cell phone of a female arrestee. Harrington admitted he had done this approximately a half dozen times in the last several years. Harrington said he first learned of this scheme when he was working in the Los Angeles Office. Harrington said when he was assigned to the Dublin Office, he learned from other Officers that they would access the cellphones of female arrestees and look for nude photographs of them. Harrington said if photographs were located, the officers would then text the photographs to other sworn members of the office, and, to non CHP individuals. Harrington described this scheme as a game.
The Hazelwood warrant quotes from a number of lewd text messages that Harrington and Hazelwood sent to each other about Doe and her physical appearance. One text from Harrington is sent to Dion Simmons, a third fellow CHP officer in the Dublin office: “Just rerun a favor down the road, buddy
”
Jane Doe #1's attorney, Rick Madsen, told Ars in a statement that he and his client are "pleased" that Harrington was charged with a felony crime but are unhappy that the two other officers were not charged.
"We respectfully disagree with the interpretation of the evidence pertaining to Officers Hazelwood and Simmons," he said by e-mail. "Given that Harrington is charged with the theft of private images, it would seem intellectually inconsistent that the knowing and voluntary receipt of those same images would not also constitute criminal activity. We remain confident that the investigations by Alameda and Contra Costa counties are still ongoing and we will continue to vigorously assert our position to prosecutorial authorities."
Another county begins investigating
Meanwhile, in neighboring Alameda County, Teresa Drenick, a spokeswoman for the district attorney, told Ars this week: “Our office has an open investigation into the matter and we will review cases involving the officers.”
She added that on Monday, the District Attorney tossed a DUI case as it also involved Hazelwood.
"We dismissed a DUI case in the interest of justice,” she said.
Alameda County Public Defender Brendon Woods told Ars in an e-mailed statement that he was shocked at the alleged behavior by these suspects.
“We entrust police officers with an enormous amount of power," he wrote. "And for them to abuse that power totally undermines their credibility. My office is currently reviewing pending and closed cases involving these officers. The majority of these cases appear to be DUIs. We also have reached out to the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office in connection with those cases. We’re glad the Contra Costa District Attorney’s office is taking this behavior seriously and if any of this illegal behavior occurred in Alameda County, I know our District Attorney will take it just as seriously."
"The audacity of these officers is appalling. If they were willing to break the law in order to steal naked pictures of unsuspecting women, imagine what other acts they could have been engaged in. Their conduct brings into question any investigation or arrest they were ever involved with."
Ars has contacted other district attorneys in neighboring counties as well as in Los Angeles County, to see if they are conducting related probes, but has not received a reply.
Betrayed by iMessage
According to the warrants, the story begins in the early hours of August 29, 2014. That was when Harrington, along with his partner, Officer Pope, pulled over a woman (Jane Doe #1) for an unsafe lane change southbound on Interstate 680 near Crow Canyon Road, and gave her a breathalyzer test for driving under the influence of alcohol. Her blood alcohol level was measured at 0.29 percent—far more than the 0.08 percent that California law allows.
At some point during the traffic stop, one of the officers asked for her phone, which she provided. Then, Harrington asked for her password, which she also provided.
Doe was arrested and booked at the Martinez Detention Facility, in the far north of the county, and then released a few hours later.
Five days later, according to the warrant, Doe looked at her iPad at home and saw that on the Messages app, six photographs had been sent via iMessage to a 707 area code phone number that she did not recognize.
The photos showed her in “various stages of undress” and included topless shots and others in which she wore a bikini or underwear. Two of the photos included a “female friend” engaged in similar poses.
Doe told investigators that she “did not give permission to anyone at telephone number [REDACTED] to have those photographs. Jane Doe said she looked at her iPhone and did not see the messages.”
Then, she searched for this 707 phone number online, and found that it was associated with Harrington, whom she remembered was the CHP officer who arrested her.
Jane Doe said she "never gave Harrington permission to access the photos in her phone and never gave him permission to send nude photographs of herself to his phone,” the warrant of Harrington’s home continues. “Jane Doe said she and Officer Harrington have not spoken to each other since the arrest on August 29, although Jane Doe said she called the phone number but no one answered. Doe said she did not know Officer Harrington before that date.”
In a statement released to the public on Friday, Contra Costa District Attorney Mark Peterson said that this was the "first time in the county's history that his office has charged an officer with a crime of this nature." He also noted that all charges against Jane Doe #1 would be dropped.
