Former Columbus vice officer convicted of civil rights violations

COLUMBUS, Ohio — A former Columbus police deputy was sentenced to imprisonment for violating the civil rights of a person he investigated.

Steven Rosser, 46, was given 18 months on Thursday, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Ohio said.

A jury convicted Rosser of conspiracy to commit civil liberties in February 2022.

Rosser has been with the Columbus Police Department for 19 years and served as a detective in the vice unit from April 2013 to October 2018.

According to court documents and testimony, Rosser and others “conspired to deprive” a gentleman’s club owner of his civil rights by seizing and searching him and his car without reason in violation of the Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution.

At trial, the government presented evidence that Rosser was part of a scheme to frame the victim for possession of cocaine. The actual amount of cocaine planted at the scene as part of the conspiracy was minuscule, approximately 0.017 grams.

Authorities say Rosser falsified documentation to cover up the conspiracy after he orchestrated the fraudulent arrest.

Rosser was fired by Columbus police in 2019. A federal grand jury indicted and arrested him in March 2020.

During his trial, Rosser was found not guilty of another count of conspiracy stemming from the 2015 incident.

He was accused of getting into a “physical altercation” with a man outside a strip club and then using “a CPD officer’s credentials” to file a false report against the man who claimed he had “threatened” Rossera. of life.

Before being fired, Rosser spent a year on the job following the controversial July 2018 arrest of Stormy Daniels and two other women.

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