The Stormy Daniels Columbus Ohio affair seems to have come to a decisive end recently as two of her arresting officers are fired, two supervising officers are under suspension, and she is walking away with a cash settlement of $450,000 from the City. The fired officers are Steven Rossler a 19 year’s veteran of the department and Whitney Lancaster, who is a 32 years department veteran. In addition their supervisor a Lt. Kimmerling is under suspension for six weeks and a Sgt. Soha, whose punishment is also a three weeks suspension.
In what started as a steamy affair in a strip club in the city on the night of July 11, 2018, and ended with the arrest of porn star turned guest stripper Daniels as well as two local women working at Sirens Gentlemen’s Club. During her “Make America Horny Again” show, the officers from the now-defunct vice unit who were undercover arrested her and the other two ladies for violating the “Ohio Stripper Bill” from 2007. Basically, the law prohibits partially or fully nude dancers from touching the other club visitors and vice versa. Daniels was placed under arrest for touching three undercover officers inappropriately.
Well, you would think that would be the end of the story except at the time of her arrest. Miss Daniels was having a very public spat with the President of the United States, Mr. Trump about an affair they had in 2006, an NDA, and a hush-money payment of $130,000 by his personal lawyer before the 2016 presidential election. There was an international outcry that the arrest was political, especially after all the facts on the case became public with the FBI taking over the investigation. For example, that the Ohio Stripper Law the police used to arrest her was actually applicable to dancers who perform at a location more than once and since Ms. Daniels was a onetime guest performer, anything she did that night was not illegal, and therefore she did not deserve an arrest. The vice officers may seem to have targeted her and ignored other crimes at the club. For example, they saw one patron pass cocaine to another but they did not intervene or make an arrest.
Secondly, the operation at the sirens deviated significantly from the other undercover operations at other clubs that the two officers had done in the past. In those other investigations, the charges were always filed at a later time, or the offender was released on summons or on their own recognizance without bail. No one had ever been arrested in the past and taken to jail except Ms. Clifford. All in all, the FBI determined that there was no political motivation for the arrest but that the whole operation was botched from the start.
From lack of supervision by the vice unit superiors to the detectives involved lying to their internal affairs counterparts and what the funds for the undercover operation were used for. The FBI findings led to the above firings and suspensions in the case. As for Ms. Daniels, (Real name Stephanie Clifford); she did sue the city for 2 million dollars in federal court, alleging that the officers violated her civil rights and were politically motivated in her arrest. She later settled with the city for $450,000.
