John Rose, former Fire Chief of Oak Bluffs, is being charged with two new counts of attempting to commit a crime.
Rose was charged with attempting to photograph, video, or conduct “electronic surveillance” on a “nude or partially nude persons” and attempting to pose or exhibit a “child in state of nudity or sexual conduct.”
The complaint was issued on June 28. Rose is scheduled to be arraigned in Edgartown District Court next month.
According to court documents, the offenses took place in Oak Bluffs in December of 2023. In the description of the counts, court documents allege the defendant had “placed a hidden camera” but “failed in the perpetration of such offense, or was intercepted and prevented in the execution of such offense.”
Massachusetts State Police had been investigating the former chief for allegedly secretly videotaping a child. He was arrested in January for allegedly filming a nude adult without their knowledge.
Rose’s arraignment date is on August 8, which is also when he will be having a third pre-trial hearing on the initial case of filming a nude person without their knowledge.
Rose could not be immediately reached for comment.
The Cape and Islands District Attorney’s Office, who charged Rose in January of this year, declined to comment on the new counts. Rose was arrested that month at Logan International Airport in Boston.
Rose served as chief of the Oak Bluffs Fire Department from 2014 to 2020. He resigned from the town amid a sexual harassment claim that cost Oak Bluffs $97,500. During his tenure, the Federal Bureau of Investigation was also probing the department for overbilling the federal government of Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements for off-Island ambulance runs.
Rose later joined the West Tisbury Fire Department in 2022 as a firefighter, but he was indefinitely suspended in December of 2023 when a restraining order was issued against him in Edgartown District Court.
