Albany County Sheriff's Investigator Charged With Misusing Flock Cameras To Track Ex-Girlfriend 3,000 Times

ALBANY, N.Y. — A senior investigator with the Albany County Sheriff's Office has been arrested and charged with misusing the department's Flock Safety license plate reader system, allegedly conducting thousands of unauthorized searches to track a former girlfriend's vehicle and monitor several other acquaintances.

Laurie Moore, 47, a 13-year veteran of the sheriff's office, is accused of conducting more than 4,000 unauthorized searches involving five people known to her, according to the Albany County Sheriff's Office. That total includes tracking her former girlfriend's vehicle approximately 3,000 times, along with running four additional license plates hundreds of times each, according to reporting from Syracuse.com and local station WRGB.

Albany County Sheriff Craig Apple announced Moore's arrest during a news conference Wednesday, saying the investigation began after the department received a tip from an outside source. Apple said Moore had gained access to the Flock system around the end of 2024.

"As professional standards and in-house counsel expanded the audit, the true scope emerged," Apple said, describing how the internal investigation grew once officials began reviewing Moore's search history in greater detail.

The Flock Safety camera network uses artificial intelligence to automatically read and log license plates from vehicles passing through its cameras, which have been installed on public roadways, neighborhood entrances, highways, parking lots and school campuses across 49 states. Law enforcement agencies use the system to help track criminal suspects and stolen vehicles, and thousands of agencies nationwide are able to search and share data across jurisdictions to assist their investigations. The system has drawn sustained criticism from privacy advocates over its data collection capabilities and documented instances of misuse by law enforcement personnel across the country.

Moore was charged with misdemeanor counts of official misconduct and second-degree falsifying business records, according to the Times Union. She is also accused of improperly accessing New York state Department of Motor Vehicles records for unofficial purposes, beyond her alleged misuse of the Flock system specifically.

Sheriff Apple addressed the broader significance of the case during his news conference, expressing regret over the breach while emphasizing the department's commitment to accountability.

"Now it's only a supervisor. It undergoes an audit process with Internal Affairs, which is reviewed every 30 days. That has to be kicked up to an undersheriff or chief," Apple said, describing changes the department has made to restrict access to Flock data following the discovery of Moore's alleged misuse. "What happened here is a breach of that trust. And for that, I'm truly sorry. But let me be clear. It also demonstrates that when somebody abuses that trust, we'll hold them accountable."

Apple separately described Moore in personal terms during the announcement, calling her a quality investigator and saying the situation "literally breaks my heart," according to the Times Union's account of the news conference. An additional, unidentified command staff member was placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of a related internal investigation, according to reporting on the case.

Moore was suspended from her position following her arrest and is scheduled to appear in New Scotland Town Court at 5 p.m. on Sept. 24 to face the charges.

The case adds to a growing pattern of reported misuse of Flock's camera network by individual law enforcement officers across the country in recent months. In a separate case in Wisconsin, a Milwaukee police officer was accused of using the Flock system to monitor a former romantic partner, with investigators finding he had logged searches under the vague justification of "investigation," a term an analysis by the Wisconsin Examiner previously found was the most commonly used search justification among Wisconsin law enforcement agencies accessing the Flock system during the first five months of 2025.

In Idaho, officials with the Jerome County Sheriff's Office discovered hundreds of searches conducted by the county's own sheriff, logged under the label "test," all targeting the same vehicle that did not belong to the county. That discovery prompted an investigation by the Idaho Attorney General's Office after officials determined they could find no legitimate law enforcement justification for the repeated searches.

Flock Safety itself announced changes to its platform last month intended to address growing privacy concerns and documented instances of misuse by law enforcement personnel using the system, according to reporting on the Albany County case, reflecting a broader effort by the company to respond to mounting scrutiny of how its technology has occasionally been exploited by individual officers for personal, non-investigative purposes.

Despite these documented cases of misuse, Flock's camera network has also been credited with assisting in numerous legitimate law enforcement investigations across the country, including cases involving stolen vehicles, individuals wanted on active warrants, and at least one instance in which the system helped rescue a child who had been kidnapped and driven across state lines. Law enforcement officials in multiple jurisdictions have continued to defend the system's overall value for public safety even as individual cases of alleged misuse have drawn increasing scrutiny.

With Moore's case now moving through the New Scotland Town Court system, Albany County officials have indicated the department has already tightened access controls governing who within the sheriff's office can query the Flock database, requiring supervisor-level approval and regular 30-day audits going forward, changes the department says are intended to prevent similar unauthorized access in the future.

As of Wednesday's announcement, no additional details had been released regarding the specific relationship between Moore and the former girlfriend she allegedly tracked, nor had officials disclosed the identities of the four other individuals whose license plates were allegedly searched hundreds of times each as part of the broader pattern of unauthorized access uncovered during the internal review.