Crooked Cincinnati cop finally sent to prison

It took five years, but former Cincinnati police officer Julian Steele finally began serving his prison term Monday for falsely jailing a juvenile in a case that went to the Ohio Supreme Court.

Steele, 52, of Springfield Township, was convicted in 2009 of intimidation and two counts of abduction for jailing a teen Steele knew committed no crime. At trial, prosecutors said Steele did that to get sexual favors from the teen’s mother.

“Both the victim ... and his mother were extremely traumatized by what took place,” Special Prosecutor Daniel “Woody” Breyer said Monday.

While investigating a series of Northside street robberies in 2009, Steele arrested the male teen at school and put him in jail. An assistant Hamilton County prosecutor – Megan Shanahan, now a Municipal Court Judge – became suspicious. Steele admitted he wrongly jailed the teen who sat in jail 11 days for nothing.

“It’s disgusting that he was allowed to stay out this long,” Shanahan said Monday. “I am so happy justice is finally being served.”

Shanahan was covering a case for another prosecutor when Steele wanted the case presented to the grand jury in 2009.

“He told me right out of the gate that he knew the kid didn’t do anything,” Shanahan said.

Then she saw the mother of the locked-up teen and asked what was going on. What Shanahan heard caused her to scream at Steele.

“I said, ‘Under what authority do you have the right to lock up a juvenile when you knew he did nothing wrong?’”

Steele admitted he received oral sex from the woman but said it was consensual. The same jury that convicted Steele in 2009 found him not guilty of the sexual allegations in the case.

Steele has been on electric monitoring – wearing an electric device that tells officials of his whereabouts – for four years as his case wound through several appeals.

Steele, who didn’t speak at Monday’s sentencing, initially was sentenced by then-Common Pleas Court Judge Dennis Helmick to five years in prison. But after the case went to the Ohio Supreme Court and twice to the Court of Appeals, a gun charge in the case was dropped, lowering Steele’s prison sentence to four years.

That is what Common Pleas Court Judge Leslie Ghiz, who replaced the retired Helmick, imposed Monday.

Had Steele started his sentence when initially convicted, he would have completed it last year.

Both Breyer and Helmick said at Steele’s sentencing hearing five years ago that the rogue cop’s actions tainted all police as well as the justice system.

After his conviction, Steele resigned from the Cincinnati Police Department and said he never again would try to become a police officer. His felony conviction now ensures that because felons aren’t allowed to carry firearms. When first arrested, Steele was a 14-year CPD veteran making an annual base salary of about $66,000.

After he completes his prison sentence, Steele then must serve 10 years on probation.