Court documents: Suspended Pennsylvania police officer sexually abused children and animals

A Schuylkill County police officer has been accused of sexually abusing animals and children and uploading videos of the abuse, court documents show.

Christopher J. Cordes, 29, has been suspended indefinitely without pay by the Tamaqua Police Department for “conduct unbecoming a police officer,” the department said in a news release Friday.

Cordes, a Bloomsburg resident, was arrested Friday and charged with 18 felony counts, including photographing a child engaging in sexual activity, sexual abuse of a minor and child pornography.

An affidavit from the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s office contained the following report:

The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children received a tip from Snapchat in October 2023 about a photo of a girl’s genitals that had been uploaded by an account with the username “haytherecowboy.”

According to court documents, the Snapchat account was traced to a phone number registered to Cordes’ name and address.

Investigators found that Cordes had used the Snapchat account to solicit and upload child pornography. He also used the account to send messages to children. In the messages, he said he wanted to impregnate a 13-year-old girl and start a family that would “play together,” suggesting incestuous contact, state investigators wrote in the affidavit.

According to court documents, Cordes also admitted in the messages to repeatedly sexually abusing a young relative.

The affidavit states that Cordes used Snapchat to send several sexual videos of himself. In some of the videos, he sexually abused dogs, court documents say.

A girl who spoke to Cordes on Snapchat told investigators he infected her with a sexually transmitted disease when they met in 2021. CashApp records show Cordes later sent her $150 for treatment for the sexually transmitted disease, the affidavit said.

According to court documents, during their second meeting, Cordes told the girl that “he was sexually attracted to children up to toddler age, that he wanted to have children to abuse, and that he could get away with it because he was a police officer.”

Tamaqua police said in their news release Friday that they were not aware of any inappropriate behavior while Cordes was on duty.

Cordes failed to make the $250,000 bail and has been held in the Columbia County Jail since Monday, online court records show. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for June 12 before Magistrate Judge Russell Lawton.