Yes, Stormy Daniels should never have been arrested. She didn’t break any laws. And the Vice Unit responsible has turned out to be so corrupt that it has been shut down following an FBI investigation and the indictment of one of its officers.
The troubled vice unit of the Columbus Division of Police, which became nationally known for its arrest of Stormy Daniels last summer and has since become the subject of a federal corruption investigation, was abolished on Tuesday, about two weeks after one of its detectives was indicted.
The Ohio detective, Andrew K. Mitchell, 55, retired on March 13, two days after his arrest on federal charges that he kidnapped women and forced them to have sex with him, a police spokeswoman said on Wednesday. Along with Mr. Mitchell, two other officers who had been in the vice unit were officially removed from their vice assignments after previously having been placed on desk jobs, police officials said. …
The vice unit of the Columbus Division of Police became the subject of national attention last July, when four of the unit’s detectives were sent to Sirens Gentlemen’s Club in northeastern Columbus to investigate complaints “alleging prostitution and drug activity,” according to court documents.
… the law under which Ms. Daniels was arrested applied to people who “regularly” appear nude or seminude at a particular establishment, and Ms. Clifford had not appeared at the club consistently.
Still, the episode raised the possibility that the arrest of Ms. Daniels, who by that time had gained nationwide prominence for her allegations that she had had an affair with President Trump, had been politically motivated and caused some to wonder why undercover vice officers had been sent to the strip club in the first place. The police chief at the time, Kim Jacobs, quickly acknowledged that “a mistake was made” and promised to review “the motivations behind the officers’ actions.” …
Mr. Mitchell, a 31-year veteran of the Division of Police, was not one of the four detectives involved in Ms. Daniels’s arrest on July 11, the police spokeswoman, Sgt. Chantay Boxill, said on Wednesday. Sergeant Boxill said the arrest was one of several episodes that drew attention to the vice unit and eventually prompted an investigation into it. …
In September, the vice unit, … paused operations for a month while the division conducted an internal review of the unit. Asked at a news conference at the time whether the strip-club episode involving Ms. Daniels or the fatal shooting of Ms. Castleberry had resulted in the pause, Chief Jacobs said that “everything’s related to it.”
As the four-week review period came to a close, Chief Jacobs requested that the F.B.I.’s Public Corruption Task Force take over the review — a request the bureau accepted. The pause on the vice unit’s work remained in effect, the police division said at the time.
Based on the F.B.I.’s initial findings, three officers, Steven Rosser, Whitney Lancaster and Mr. Mitchell, were, at various points late last year, stripped of their guns and placed on desk duty pending the outcome of the investigation, Sergeant Boxill said on Wednesday. She added that the investigation was continuing. …
