Trouble and Ryan Lorey were inseparable during his police career. Lorey’s unprofessional behaviour was documented on the job, whether it was allegedly pointing a gun at a woman while intoxicated, arriving at work after drinking, driving under the influence of alcohol, or sexually propositioning teenage girls.
However, over the next two decades, he was hired as a bus driver at Mayfield Central School District and Broadalbin-Perth School, where Lorey currently works.
He grew up in a small town in Upstate New York. His records of misconduct as a police officer in local departments from years ago are a burden in communities where he is well-known.
Lorey’s case stood out as we examined 50a discipline records in 2025 for our Good Cop Bad Cop project with USA TODAY Network-New York, Central Current, and Syracuse University.
“I kind of stayed under the radar,” a contrite Lorey told us when we enquired about the records that had previously been hidden by police as policy. “I felt very ashamed of my past. It probably took me about ten years to feel like a person again.”
Our investigation into the case focused not only on the sexual harassment and drinking incidents found in his released police records, which are part of our growing collection of such documents, but also on Lorey’s future career path.
He became a school bus driver. How did this happen?
One New York officer carried his past with him.
Lorey was a newly hired police officer at the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Department in the autumn of 2001. When he was navigating the police world, he was isolated and had almost complete freedom to do his job.
When asked about this chapter in his life, he spoke gently. A calm and open demeanour that encouraged conversation. “I was very young and very unsupervised up here in Upstate New York,” Lorey admitted to me. “It’s not like the NYPD; you can sometimes work completely alone. So, that was a very difficult situation for a young man like me back then.”
