There was apparently enough evidence to arrest him, but not enough to fire him.
A cop who has worked as a trooper for the California Highway Patrol for 26-years was arrested at his home for sharing child porn over the internet.
According to KCRA3, the California Highway Patrol placed 54-year-old Patrick Francis Cooney Jr. on paid leave while the Placer County Sheriff’s Office conducts an investigation into the highway patrol veteran, CHP Officer Rafael Cervantes confirmed.
The Placer County Sheriff’s Office had already been conducting an ongoing investigation of officer Cooney’s activities for two weeks prior to his arrest today that involved a “high tech detective,” Placer County Sheriff spokeswoman Dena Erwin told PINAC in a telephone interview.
That investigation resulted in a judge signing a warrant and Placer County Sheriff deputies searching officer Cooney’s home and confiscating his electronic devices, which resulted in his arrest around 4 p.m. Monday.
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Detectives accused Cooney of transmitting pornography involving children and allege he willingly transmitted pornography that contains images of individuals participating in sex acts with children under 18.
Dena Erwin, spokeswoman for Placer County told PINAC in a telephone interview that Cooney’s activities were “not related to his work”, but reminded us the investigation is still ongoing.
Cooney’s bond was set at $50,000 after he was booked shortly after 5.00 p.m., according to Erwin.
A spokesperson at the Placer County Jail told PINAC they no longer had anyone with the name of Cooney in custody, which would indicate he’s already paid his bond and been released from jail.
Officer Cooney also worked for the CHP at the Ventura and North Sacramento offices prior working the Auburn area.
The California Highway Patrol released a public statement stating:
“CHP is aware of the arrest of one of its officers by the Placer County Sheriff Department for alleged behavior that occurred while the employee was off duty. I want to assure the public that we take any allegation of misconduct by our employees, whether on or off duty, very seriously. The CHP is fully cooperating with the investigating agencies. In addition, the CHP is conducting its own investigation into the allegations.”
Erwin stated to auburnjournal.com, the activities they suspect officer Cooney of being involved in posed “no projected threat” to the community.
Charges related to child porn against California Highway Patrol troopers is nothing new.
California Highway Patrolman 51-year-old Eric Lund was arrested after detectives found child pornography being watched of young prepubescent boys being raped and sexually assaulted by male adults.
As the investigation against Lund unfolded, detectives found more than 10,000 video and images on flash drives of male children being assaulted by adult males.
California Highway Patrol Sgt. Eric C. Lund downloaded and watched porn of adult males raping male children from his patrol car that was captured by a camera, after detectives investigated porn being downloaded on an ice-cream shop’s Wi-Fi.
His trial is set for March 22, 2017.
According to dailyrepublic.com, Lund avoided leaving an electronic trail of his whereabouts since he rarely logged onto the GPS tracking system.
But Detective Jeff Datzman placed tracking devices on both patrol cars he was likely to use later in the day when he started his night shift. While placing the tracking devices in his car, he notice a Hewlitt-Packard laptop in the back seat, which led to a judge signing a warrant to search the contents of the computer.
Detective Datzman then retrieved the tracking devices and compared GPS tracking data to databases that enables tracking data to child pornography being viewed on the internet.
Datzman found that during the previous night somebody had gone online to access videos and websites of adult men raping 11- and 12-year-old boys.
Police arrested him the next day, after tracking his movement and whereabouts to several other Wi-Fi locations where videos of men raping young boys had been viewed.
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