COLUMBUS, Ohio — A former Columbus police vice officer was sentenced to prison for violating the civil rights of a person he was investigating.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Ohio said 46-year-old Steven Rosser was given 18 months on Thursday.
A jury found Rosser guilty of conspiracy to violate an individual's civil rights in February 2022.
Rosser was employed with the Columbus Division of Police for 19 years and worked 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” the civil rights of one of the owners of a gentlemen’s club by seizing and searching him and his vehicle without probable cause in violation of the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
During the trial, the government presented evidence that Rosser was part of a scheme to frame the victim for cocaine possession. The actual amount of cocaine planted on the scene as part of the plot was a minuscule amount, approximately .017 gram.
Authorities say Rosser falsified documentation to conceal the conspiracy activity after orchestrating the fraudulent arrest.
Rosser was fired by Columbus police in 2019. He was indicted by a federal grand jury and arrested in March 2020.
During his trial, Rosser was found not guilty on another count of conspiracy from an incident in 2015.
He was accused of getting into a “physical altercation” with a man outside a strip club and later used the “log-in credentials of a fellow CPD officer” to create a false report against the man alleging he made a “threat” on Rosser’s life.
Before being fired, Rosser spent a year on desk duty following the controversial arrest of Stormy Daniels and two other women in July 2018.
