Mary Beth Lane reports:
A former Laurelville police chief was sentenced yesterday in Hocking County Common Pleas Court to a year’s probation for unauthorized use of property.
Judge John T. Wallace sentenced James E. Taylor, 45, of Circleville, to six months in prison, suspended for a year’s probation. Taylor also surrendered his Ohio peace-officer certificate, meaning he can never work as a sworn officer in the state again, said Jill Del Greco, a spokeswoman for Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine.
Taylor pleaded guilty to the fifth-degree felony last month, admitting that he misused the Ohio Law Enforcement Gateway to obtain information on people for purposes unrelated to law enforcement. The online secure network shares criminal-justice data among law-enforcement agencies, and is supposed to be used only for official business.
Read more on Columbus Dispatch.
It would be great if some privacy advocates analyzed all the cases involving misuse of law enforcement databases for personal to use to get a sense of whether there are ever any really serious jail time sentences, or if the consequences tend to be (just probation) but loss of job.