Mom Claims Dirty Cop Used Her for Sex

CINCINNATI (CN) - A woman claims a Cincinnati police detective coerced her into giving him oral sex after arresting her two sons and interrogating them until one falsely confessed to several crimes. She claims former police Det. Julian Steele was convicted of "felony abduction for his false arrests" and sentenced to prison, though he is free on bond pending appeal.

The woman and her children, who sued in Federal Court listing only their initials, claim that Steele "had established a pattern of abusing his police powers by soliciting females with whom he came into contact with as a police detective for dates or sexual favors."

After the mother's car was identified as the getaway vehicle involved in a series of robberies, Steele and his partner went to the teen-age boys' school where "each was handcuffed within plain view of other school staff and students, placed in the back of a cruiser, and driven off ... for interrogation," according to the complaint.

The mom says the boys were interrogated three times and Steele told them that "unless they confessed to the robberies, he would arrest and prosecute their mother, and she would do 15 years in prison."

(The complaint adds that "While on the school premises, Steele tried to arrange a date with the school nurse, which she refused.")

The mother says one of the boys finally confessed, though he had nothing to do with the robberies, at which point Steele told her to meet him off duty to discuss the case.

When she did, she says, "Steele told her how good she looked, and how he just wanted to hold her hand when she had met with him earlier at the station."

The mother says she agreed to meet Steele at his apartment after he told her he would help get her son released. But "over the next few days, he aggressively pressured her to finally perform a sexual act upon him by alternatively threatening that he could lock her up for her role as the getaway driver, but then assuring her that he believed her and would help her get her son out if she did what he wanted her to do," the complaint states.

"Under pressure, coercion and duress, and in order to secure Steele's cooperation and gain her son's release, (she) succumbed and performed fellatio upon Steele.

"He continued to try to get her to meet him again at his apartment for more sex, but she did not," according to the complaint.

After this sexual encounter, the mother says, Steele admitted to the Hamilton County prosecutor that he did not have any real evidence against her son and that he believed the boy was innocent, and as a result, the boy was never indicted.

"Asked under what possible legal excuse would he arrest and hold a juvenile whom he knew was innocent, Steele told Prosecutor Shanahan that it was an 'investigative technique' to get at the mother, and to put pressure on her to admit her own involvement in the robberies," the complaint states.

"He failed to mention to Prosecutor Shanahan that he had really been using his unlawful abduction and detention of (her son) at a technique, in fact, to get at the mother and to pressure and coerce her into having sex with him."

The mother adds: "Following investigation, Steele was indicted, prosecuted and convicted of two counts of felony abduction for his false arrests of R.M. and L.G., and one county of intimidation for his use of the false confession he coerced from R.M. He was sentenced to five years imprisonment for his offenses to be followed by five years of community control.

"He is, at the time of filing of this complaint, free on bond pending appeal."

The woman and her sons seek punitive damages for constitutional and civil rights violations, including false arrest, false imprisonment, malicious prosecution, extortion, sexual battery, intimidation and fabrication of evidence.

They are represented by Kenneth Hawley.

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