Philadelphia Police Officer Charles Young was arrested last Thursday for involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, corruption of a minor, and indecent sexual assault for a four year relationship that began when the victim was just a 14 year old 8th grader. She told police that her nightmare began when Officer Young pulled up next to her in his patrol vehicle as she was walking home from school and gave her his number. When she called him he picked her up and had sex with her. That was in 2004. The relationship continued for four more years. During that time the victim reported having sex with Officer Young on fairly regular basis. Sometimes he would pick her up in his patrol car from school, give her money, and tell her not to tell her mom about it. In January of 2020 the victim picked Young's photo out of a photo array. Such delays in time between when the crimes took place and when victims finally report them to the police are common in child sex cases when the victim is groomed, does not figure out how wrong it is until much later, and only after years of psychological suffering do they come forward seeking closure.
Charles Young retired before his arrest in an attempt to collect his pension. He is 50 years old and was on the force for 21 years. Officers often retire when they are caught committing crimes because they know that it takes the department a long time to officially fire them, so by retiring before they can be fired they can get their pension just like any other public employee that retired on good terms. Being convicted later is too little too late when it comes to saving the taxpayers from having to pay guys like Young a pension for the rest of their lives.
Public records contain a listing of a 50 year old man with a suppressed drivers license named Charles Garrett Young at 1222 Haworth St. in Philadelphia, but that appears to belong to a Day Care run by someone else. The other address we found for him was 1505 Rosalie St. in Philadelphia which is just a few blocks away. We believe that this is the same Charles Young that was recently arrested in this case because drivers license records for cops are often explicitly listed as "suppressed" in records from the background check service that we use. Drivers license suppression is intended to protect police officers by keeping people from being able to track them down using DMV records, but the process often backfires when their information turns up on public records websites from other sources with their drivers license listed as suppressed. Seeing the drivers license field listed as "suppressed" for one person when there are more than one person with same first name, last name, and age in the same metropolitan area is often the key to determining which one is the bad cop we are looking for.
We usually do not make the home address of an officer available, but there are some exceptions to that rule such as the officer being charged with a sex crime involving a minor. In such cases we believe that any community that they live in may be at risk and needs to know what is living near them. We ask that nobody use that information for any unlawful purpose.
We are currently searching for a photo of Young. If you know where we can find one please contact us or post a link to it in the comments section on this page.
UPDATE: We have been informed that Young might not be able to keep his pension after all. Pennsylvania has a law that lists various crimes that disqualify people from receiving a pension if they used their position to commit the crime. Act 1 of 2019 says "Any criminal offense under the laws of this Commonwealth classified as a felony or punishable by a term of imprisonment exceeding five years." (https://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/legis/li/uconsCheck.cfm?yr=2019&sessInd=0&act=1). We were not aware of that act when we wrote the article and were speaking from experience in most states where cops are able to keep their pensions if they retire on good terms.