City Employee Indicted in Child Pornography Case

UPDATE 1/31/2017: While he was on house arrest for the original charges, Grant Shea was arrested again on Monday after the FBI searched his home and found something disturbing. For the full story, go here.

Earlier this week, Grant Shea was the Health and Human Services Program Manager at Philadelphia’s Office of Emergency Management. Today, he is the defendant in a federal child pornography case.

Shea, 29, was indicted on Thursday by a federal grand jury and charged with receipt of child pornography, distribution of child pornography, and possession of child pornography. The FBI obtained a search warrant for his home in South Philadelphia in May, but it is unclear when that search warrant was executed.

According to the indictment, investigators seized two laptops and a desktop computer from his home, which he purchased in 2013.

Prosecutors say that those computers contained child pornography that depicted minors under the age of 12 and that Shea knowingly distributed the child pornography using the Internet.

A spokesman for the United States Attorney in Philadelphia says that Shea is currently at home and under electronic monitoring pending his next court date.

“Due to personal reasons, Grant Shea has resigned from his position effective immediately,” wrote OEM director Samantha Phillips in an internal email to staff on Thursday. “I cannot discuss this further, but please know that Grant left cordially and will be dearly missed.”

According to Shea’s since-deleted biography on the Office of Emergency Management’s website, Shea is originally from Point Pleasant, New Jersey, and graduated from Rutgers University before obtaining his master’s degree from Philadelphia University. He worked as a volunteer EMT and as an emergency department technician at Jersey Shore University Medical Center before working for the city.

In his most recent role for the OEM, Shea supervised a team charged with planning for medical and hazardous materials aspects of emergencies in Philadelphia. Before that, he worked as a planning coordinator.

Shea’s Facebook and Twitter accounts were deleted earlier this week.

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