Former Bucks County deputy charged over nude prisoner photos

A former Bucks County, Pennsylvania, deputy sheriff has been charged with secretly photographing naked people in custody, prosecutors said. The case matters because investigators say the evidence came partly from the same body-worn camera system the deputy allegedly tried to block.

Bucks County District Attorney Joe Khan announced charges against Ryan Gaffney after a sheriff’s office complaint accused him of using his iPhone to take nude images of prisoners he encountered at work. Prosecutors said Gaffney also shared the images with civilian employees and personal contacts.

The investigation began after a March 31 complaint from the Bucks County Sheriff’s Office, according to prosecutors. The complaint focused on a Jan. 30 response involving a local man who was experiencing a mental health crisis.

Five uniformed deputies were in an upstairs bedroom during that call, prosecutors said. The man was naked from the waist down before deputies persuaded him to put on pants.

Investigators said another deputy later reported seeing Gaffney show a photo of the man’s genitals on his phone to a female civilian employee as a joke after the arrest and booking. The same witness also told investigators that Gaffney had done something similar in late 2024 by photographing a person’s bare buttocks while that person was in custody.

Investigators reviewed Axon bodycam records and found Gaffney had not accessed the Jan. 30 bodycam footage for months, according to prosecutors. That led them to examine whether the image shown the day of the arrest came from Gaffney’s phone rather than from official camera footage.

Gaffney’s own bodycam did not show him taking a picture, prosecutors said. It did show his hand covering the lens for several moments.

Footage from other deputies in the room showed more, according to investigators. Prosecutors said those recordings showed Gaffney removing a glove, taking an iPhone 15 from his right pants pocket, handling it, and putting it away.

Investigators said the other bodycams also captured Gaffney covering his own camera with his left hand while reaching again for the phone. Prosecutors said the phone appeared to have its camera app open when he briefly pointed it toward the man as he got dressed.

Authorities obtained a warrant on April 22 to search Gaffney’s phone, prosecutors said. A detective not assigned to the investigation searched it the next day and found both nude images described by witnesses, according to the district attorney’s office.

Prosecutors said further analysis showed one image had been shared with two saved contacts and the other with 12 contacts from Gaffney’s personal device on four dates. Investigators also said metadata tied the images to Gaffney’s phone and to times that matched bodycam recordings.

Gaffney had previously given a voluntary interview to the sheriff, according to prosecutors. In a written statement he signed as accurate, he denied using his phone in connection with the allegations, saying he used it to text his wife.

His attorney also provided screenshots of Gaffney’s iPhone photo library covering Jan. 18 through Feb. 7, prosecutors said. The disputed images did not appear in those screenshots or in the phone’s “Recently deleted” folder, but investigators said a forensic search later recovered them.

Gaffney was fired from the sheriff’s office last month, according to the district attorney. Khan charged him with offenses including official oppression, unsworn falsification to authorities, possessing an instrument of crime, and obstructing the administration of law or another government function.

“When a deputy sheriff breaks the law and then attempts to cover it up by lying about it, it erodes the public trust that thousands of honest public servants work daily to preserve,” Khan said in announcing the case.

This story draws on original reporting from Ars Technica.