A former Bucks County deputy sheriff is facing criminal charges after prosecutors say he used his personal phone to photograph people who were in custody, shared the images with colleagues and contacts, and then lied to investigators about it. He was fired in June. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for August 10.
What the Charges Say
The core offense here is official oppression, which is the charge Pennsylvania uses when someone acting in an official capacity subjects another person to mistreatment they know to be beyond their authority. It carries two counts, one for each incident described in the complaint.
The first is dated January 30 of this year in Middletown Township. Gaffney was among deputies serving an arrest warrant at a home where the man they had come for appeared to be in the middle of a mental health crisis. Prosecutors say Gaffney covered his body camera, used his personal cellphone to photograph the man, who was naked from the waist down, then showed the image to female employees of the sheriff’s office and sent it to personal contacts.
The second is older and only surfaced through a forensic examination of the phone. It is dated December 26, 2024, and prosecutors say it shows a handcuffed man in custody in a hotel room. Investigators allege the image was sent to 12 personal contacts across four separate dates.
The Part That Followed
Two of the four charges have nothing to do with the photographs themselves and everything to do with the investigation into them…