Updated Oct. 9.
The family of a teenage girl is suing former Oak Bluffs Fire Chief John Robert F. Rose for invasion of privacy and infliction of emotional distress after facing charges for filming her in her bedroom through a secret camera. The family seeks at least $1 million in compensatory damages.
The daughter filed the suit through her mother on August 13 in Dukes County Superior Court. The suit demands a trial before a jury and requests that final compensatory damage be determined at the trial.
Rose was initially arrested on Jan. 20, 2024 at Boston Logan International Airport after the daughter found a camera in her bedroom and her mother told police. Rose initially pleaded not guilty to the charges in August 2024.
Rose admitted to sufficient facts, earlier this year on March 23, on two counts of attempt to commit a crime, one tied to secret surveillance of a nude or partially nude person and one to an attempt to pose or exhibit a child in a state of nudity. Judge Benjamin C. Barnes continued the case without a finding and placed him on probation for 14 months, through May 22, 2027.
According to local attorneys, an admission to sufficient facts means Rose admitted the prosecution had enough evidence to prove his guilt but wasn’t technically pleading guilty, so no trial was held. The case continued without a finding so if Rose successfully completes the probation, the case is dismissed.
Rose, who was chief of the Oak Bluffs Fire Department from 2014 to 2020, has yet to respond to this new civil complaint. The court allowed a motion on Sept. 23 to extend the deadline to Oct. 15 for Rose to respond. A hearing date has not been set yet.
The complaint submitted in August states that the filming device looked like a USB charger. It states that neither the daughter or her mother, who was dating Rose at the time, consented to a camera in the bedroom, and Rose had no legitimate reason to put one there. The daughter has dealt with anxiety, fear, and humiliation since, according to the complaint, especially as the case became public on the Island. It states that the daughter lost a sense of safety in a place where she expected privacy.
“Mr. Rose’s conduct was extreme and outrageous, beyond all possible bounds of decency, and utterly intolerable in a civilized community,” the complaint reads.
This complaint is the latest in years-long litigation involving the former fire chief. Rose resigned as Oak Bluffs chief in 2020 after the town settled a sexual harassment claim against him for $97,500. He later joined the West Tisbury Fire Department as a volunteer and was suspended in December 2023 after a harassment prevention order was issued against him.
Editor’s note: Updated to explain and add more context to “admission of sufficient facts” and “without a finding.”
