ORANGE COUNTY, FL – An employee of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department (OCSD) has resigned following an investigation into the alleged downloading of pornographic images to a county-owned computer, according to reports from local Florida news agencies.Both WFTV.com and Local6.com have obtained footage recorded by a hidden surveillance camera installed at the OCSD offices as part of the investigation and posted video drawn from that footage to their websites. The footage allegedly shows former Sheriff’s Department employee Thomas Cockriel at his work computer.
According to a report on WFTV.com, a portion of the surveillance footage not included in the video clips posted online shows Cockriel “engaged in a sex act in a glassed-in office he shared with two other people.”
No published report has specified what manner of “sex act” Cockriel allegedly engaged in while being recorded by the surveillance camera.
Officials from the OCSD said that the camera was installed after a routine inspection of Cockriel’s computer by the OCSD’s IT department allegedly turned up over 1300 pornographic images downloaded from the web within Cockriel’s “personal space” on the office network.
At first, Cockriel denied having downloaded the images, but once he was confronted with the evidence the OCSD had compiled against him, he submitted his resignation, OCSD officials said.
Deputies from the OCSD said that Cockriel’s activities would have been grounds for termination if Cockriel had not resigned first.
“We take these kind of things very, very seriously,” said Captain Mark Strobridge of the OCSD. “We were all deeply disappointed in his activity and behavior.”
Strobridge added that while Cockriel was not a sworn officer, the OCSD holds all its employees to a high standard.
According to the OCSD, Cockriel twice had been rejected in his application to become a deputy sheriff due to previous instances in which he had been disciplined by the department, including another incident in which Cockriel was allegedly caught surfing porn websites.
Strobridge said that while nothing prevents Cockriel from pursuing a career in law enforcement elsewhere, he’ll never work for the OCSD again.
“Years down the road he could apply somewhere else,” said Strobridge. “He certainly would not have the opportunity to apply here at the Orange County Sheriff’s Office.”
