565403683

A former Mount Laurel police officer faces 12 years in prison for hacking into social media accounts of several women, where he found nude images they kept of themselves and then sent them out on the victims' social media.

Ayron Taylor, 25, of Moorestown, was sentenced earlier this month in state Superior Court in Mount Holly after pleading guilty to elements of computer theft (second degree) and official misconduct (second degree). The sentence was part of a plea agreement with the Burlington County Prosecutor's Office.

"You cannot hide from us in cyberspace – we are there, too, and we know how to find you," Prosecutor LaChia L. Bradshaw said in a statement. "This was an extremely nightmarish invasion of privacy for these victims. It was made even more egregious by the fact that the person who was terrorizing these young ladies was a law enforcement officer."

The prosecutor's office outlined the crime and the investigation:

  • The first report from a victim, in September 2022, was to the Evesham Police Department. She said her Snapchat and Facebook accounts had been hacked and her nude photos were sent to her Snapchat contacts, messaged to Facebook friends and posted on her Facebook account.
  • The investigation revealed that all victims had a student email account at Rowan College at Burlington County. Taylor illegally accessed about 5,000 of the college email accounts.
  • While on duty as a Mount Laurel patrol officer, Taylor engaged in illegal computer activity from his personal devices. Taylor resigned from the department after his suspension and measures were begun to fire him.

The investigation was conducted by the prosecutor's office High-Tech Crimes Unit and the Evesham Township Police Department, with assistance from the Mount Laurel Police Department, Delran Police Department, the New Jersey State Police and the Riverside Police Department.

The lead investigator was Evesham Detective Christopher DeFrancesco.

Tags