A federal appeals court has ruled that a police detective who took explicit photos of a teenager during a “sexting” investigation violated his right to not be unreasonably searched.
The Fourth Circuit court has ruled in favor of Trey Sims of Manassas. A city detective in 2014 tried to take photos of Sims’ erect penis after his arrest. Sims, then 17, was charged with child pornography when he and his 15-year-old girlfriend exchanged explicit photos.
Sims filed a federal civil rights lawsuit last year.
Lead detective David Abbott killed himself in 2015 as police prepared to arrest him on unrelated child sex-abuse charges.
The Tuesday ruling says “a reasonable police officer would have known that attempting to obtain a photograph of a minor child’s erect penis” would violate privacy rights.
