Showing in courtroom for her first listening to in a DUI case, a Cook dinner County elected official efficiently fought off an effort to revoke her driver’s license on Friday, after her protection lawyer aggressively questioned the arresting Chicago Police Division officer.
Samantha Steele — a first-term Democratic member of the county’s property-tax enchantment panel — was arrested last month on Chicago’s North Aspect and charged with driving below the affect after crashing a automobile into parked vehicles.
Prosecutors argued her license must be revoked, however Steele’s lawyer, John Fotopoulos, satisfied Affiliate Choose Athena James Frentzas to dam the revocation, arguing CPD Officer Danny Yu didn’t correctly warn Steele earlier than she refused to undergo DUI testing.
Fotopoulos mentioned Yu, a seven-year CPD veteran, “meant properly” however made technical errors within the arrest on Nov. 10 on Ashland Avenue.
“The officer clearly doesn’t do plenty of DUI arrests,” Fotopoulos advised the decide. “The CPD most likely wants extra coaching in DUIs.”
In his testimony, Yu repeated the assertion he made within the police report that Steele repeatedly made crass feedback concerning the measurement of his penis.
“She repeatedly mentioned, “Is your penis small’ and ‘I refuse to reply any of your questions,’” Yu mentioned below oath on the Daley Middle.
Fotopoulos shot again: “What concerning the measurement of your penis has to do together with her refusal?”
The protection lawyer then alleged Yu had advised Steele, “You Democrats are going to have to start out following the legislation now.”
Neither that nor the alleged remark about penis measurement had been caught on police physique digital camera footage, as a result of they had been made at a hospital the place Steele was handled after the accident and the cameras had been turned off there.
However movies taken on the scene present Steele repeatedly let the officers know she was a country elected official and refused to cooperate, at one level declining to observe orders to get out of the closely broken automobile she was driving.
Frentzas at first mentioned she discovered Yu credible and denied the movement from Steele’s lawyer to dam the license revocation, which the state’s lawyer’s workplace had needed. She reversed herself after Fotopoulos objected and Yu was introduced again to the witness stand, the place the protection lawyer grilled him once more.
Steele left the courtroom with out commenting. Fotopoulos additionally declined to remark, as did prosecutors.
The subsequent courtroom listening to within the case was scheduled for Feb. 14.
Dan Mihalopoulos is an investigative reporter on WBEZ’s Authorities & Politics Crew.
