New Kensington Officer Took ,000 to Delete Texts, Then Dropped His Own Case — Now He’s Charged
A plot with a Pennsylvania badge: a New Kensington police officer is facing five misdemeanor charges after prosecutors say he took $1,000 from a woman to erase their text messages — and then dismissed her criminal charges himself, claiming she was his confidential informant. He resigned from the department in September when an unrelated investigation closed in — the charges came Friday.
Nathaniel Cochran, 25, of Latrobe, was charged Thursday with five misdemeanors: tampering with public records, unsworn falsification to authorities, tampering with physical evidence, official oppression, and obstruction of the administration of law.
How the Scheme Worked
According to court documents, Cochran filed drug possession charges against a woman after a traffic stop in November 2024. He then told her he could “help” her — if she set someone else up for him.
What followed, prosecutors say, was a months-long arrangement that had nothing to do with policing: two personal phones, two meetings at his home, and a rendezvous at a GetGo gas station in Delmont where the woman deleted their messages at his direction. He gave her $1,000.
On December 5, 2024, Cochran withdrew her criminal charges himself — filing paperwork that cited her as a “confidential informant.”
How He Got Caught
The scheme surfaced the way most bad secrets do: sideways. Westmoreland County detectives, digging through Cochran’s case files during an unrelated excessive-force investigation, found the paper trail behind the “informant” claim.
That separate probe — the Delarosa excessive-force case — remains under investigation by the District Attorney’s office. Cochran resigned from the New Kensington police department in September as that investigation closed in.
He was still wearing the badge when the conduct happened: the stop, the $1,000, and the self-dismissed charges all date to late 2024, while he was an active officer.
What’s Next
Cochran does not yet have a public court date or bond amount, and no attorney is listed in court records as of Friday.
This story will be updated when arraignment details and bond information become public.
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