Reasons Not to Give Your Cell Phone to a Cop: This Guy

​Here's another item to add to the list of things cops won't go to jail for: stealing nudes off your phone.

On Tuesday, former California Highway Patrolman Sean Harrington was released on probation after pleading guilty to copying and distributing nude photos taken from the cellphones of two women in two separate incidents last year.

Both women, referred to as Jane Doe #1 and #2 in court documents, had been pulled over and arrested on DUI suspicions in Contra Costa County last August. During the first incident, Harrington copied photos from the phone of 19-year-old Jane Doe #1 and sent them to coworkers while the woman was being treated in a local hospital.

"Taken from the phone of my 10-15x while she's in X-rays. Enjoy buddy!!!" Harrington boasted in a text message to one of his colleagues, using the radio code for "female prisoner in custody."

The second incident unfolded similarly, after Harrington stopped a woman for suspected DUI in Livermore, California in early August. But he was discovered five days later when his victim noticed several photos depicting her in "various states of undress" had been sent to an unrecognized 707 number, which she traced back to the CHP officer. Harrington also admitted to snatching photos from the phones of female arrestees at least half a dozen times before, part of a "game" he says he first learned about while working at CHP's 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," the warrant says. "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."

Harrington will serve no jail time after pleading guilty on two counts of felony computer theft, and has been released on three years of probation. He will also need to talk about his crimes at a class on community violence solutions, according to prosecutor Barry Grove.

Harrington also wants you to know that he's really sorry, and hopes we can all just forget about the whole violating-women's-privacy-with-relative-impunity thing:

"I apologize to my family, my wife, my friends. I apologize to officers everywhere, especially to the two women involved," Harrington said in a pre-written statement before the court. "I'm trying to put this behind me and move forward from this. I hope now everyone else can, too." Before taking a plea deal, he originally faced up to three years and eight months in prison.

CHP Commissioner Joe Farrow said in October that the agency has several "active and open investigations" into the issue of nude photo swapping. But it's not clear whether the case has resulted in any internal policy reviews or officer retraining.

The CHP sent us the following statement.

"The California Highway Patrol has no statement or comment regarding the disposition of Mr. Harrington's case, as he is no longer a member of this Department. Mr. Harrington's actions with regard to this case were in violation of our Department's existing policies and procedures. Therefore, no new policies or procedures have been put in place, as our Department already had existing policy to prohibit such conduct. CHP employees undergo annual refresher trainings of our policies and procedures."

The photo-grabbing incidents came just a few months after a landmark case in which the Supreme Court ruled that police can't search through your cellphone or digital device without a warrant when you're arrested. They also occurred in close proximity to last year's "Celebgate" iCloud hacking incident, where still-unidentified hackers stole and publicly released nude photos of a dozen celebrities including Jennifer Lawrence and Kate Upton.

While the trend of stolen nudes shows no sign of slowing down, the takeaway of the CHP case seems more in line with the themes of police impunity and double standards we've seen in Ferguson and New York City: when it comes to digital theft, citizens and activists tend to be the ones who get the book thrown at them, while crooked cops get by relatively unscathed.

Update: This story has been updated with a statement from the CHP.