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Jefferson Parish, La. deputy fired after admitting 3,200+ unauthorized Flock searches on ex-fiancee

Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office deputy Nathan Rome was fired Aug. 18, 2026 after admitting, following a reporter inquiry and after waiving his rights to investigators, that he had used the agency's Flock license-plate-reader system to search his former fiancee's vehicle more than 3,200 times over several years for reasons unrelated to any official duty. Sheriff Joseph Lopinto confirmed the admission and the firing on the record.

Part of: Police Using License-Plate Camera Networks to Stalk

Jurisdiction
Louisiana
Location
Jefferson Parish, Louisiana

Abuses documented

Actors

  • Nathan Rome (former Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office deputy)

On Aug. 18, 2026, the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office fired Deputy Nathan Rome after he admitted misusing the agency's Flock automated license-plate-reader system to track his former fiancee's vehicle. The investigation began after a reporter's inquiry to the Sheriff's Office; Rome then came in, waived his rights, and told investigators he had run his ex-fiancee's plate through the Flock network more than 3,200 times over several years for reasons that had nothing to do with his police duties. Sheriff Joseph Lopinto confirmed the admission and the firing on the record, saying Rome "cooperated with the investigation" once confronted.

No arrest was made and no criminal charges had been filed as of the report; Lopinto said the former fiancee had not filed a criminal complaint but that the agency had not ruled out referring the matter to prosecutors. Rome's firing was disciplinary, for violating department policy on database use, rather than the product of a criminal case.

The case is part of a nationwide pattern this archive tracks under alpr-personal-misuse-by- officers: Flock and similar automated license-plate-reader networks log every search, but that audit trail catches misuse only after the fact, and only when someone goes looking. Here, more than 3,200 searches accumulated over several years before the conduct surfaced, and it took an outside reporter's question -- not the agency's own routine review -- to trigger the inquiry that ended Rome's career.

Updates

2026-08-21 — JPSO began reviewing Flock audit safeguards [2]

Sheriff Joseph Lopinto said JPSO was in talks with Flock to strengthen the system's auditing capabilities following Rome's firing, acknowledging that existing audit tools can show which deputy ran a search but not whether it served a legitimate purpose.

Why we recorded this

Access to a government license-plate surveillance network is authorized for law-enforcement purposes, not for tracking an ex-partner. Jefferson Parish Sheriff's deputy Nathan Rome admitted he ran his former fiancee's license plate through the agency's Flock camera system more than 3,200 times over several years, and was fired once the misuse came to light. This archive records the event because it shows the same failure documented across dozens of other agencies in the `alpr-personal-misuse-by-officers` pattern: a surveillance tool built for public safety went unaudited long enough for one officer to track a single private citizen thousands of times before anyone caught it.

Sources

  1. Jefferson Parish deputy fired for misusing Flock camera to track ex-fiancee's vehicle, Lopinto says — WVUE Fox 8 primary accessed September 3, 2026
  2. JPSO reviews safeguards for Flock cameras after deputy fired for misuse — WVUE Fox 8 primary accessed September 3, 2026

See also