Ex-California Highway Patrol officer sentenced to probation for sharing suspect’s nude photos

MARTINEZ, Calif. – A former California Highway Patrol officer was sentenced Tuesday to three years’ probation for sharing explicit photos from the cellphones of two women while they were under arrest.

Sean Harrington, 35, pleaded no contest in Contra Costa County Superior Court in Martinez to two felony counts of theft and copying computer data belonging to the women, the San Francisco Chronicle reported (http://bit.ly/1z7brao ).

Judge Terri Mockler, quoting from social activist Elizabeth Cady Stanton while pronouncing the sentence, said, “Women’s degradation is in man’s idea of his sexual rights. Our religion, laws, customs are all founded on the belief that woman was made for man.”

Mockler also sentenced Harrington to six months in jail, but she suspended the sentence as long as Harrington attends a violence prevention training program and obeys the law while on probation.

The allegations surfaced after a 23-year-old woman discovered nude photos of herself had been sent from her phone to an unfamiliar number in August while she was in custody on suspicion of drunken driving. A 19-year-old woman arrested in a Livermore drunken driving crash also accused Harrington of stealing photos from her phone.

Harrington, a five-year veteran who was based in Dublin, resigned two days before charges were filed.

Outside court, Harrington apologized to his family and friends, the two women involved, and police officers everywhere.

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Information from: San Francisco Chronicle, http://www.sfgate.com