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Lorin Zaner
Attorney at Law

CHARGE REDUCED IN SEX CASE INVOLVING EX-POLICE CAPTAIN
Article ID: 9808210118
Published on August 21, 1998 - The Blade (Toledo, OH)

Joseph Koch, a former Sylvania Township police captain accused of inappropriately touching a department detective, entered a plea to reduced misdemeanor charges yesterday in Sylvania Municipal Court. Mr. Koch, 48, pleaded no contest to three counts of disorderly conduct. The veteran police officer had been indicted in February on three counts of sexual imposition by a Lucas County grand jury. Visiting Judge John Wurts, of Kettering, 0., accepted the plea and ordered Mr. Koch to pay a $50 fine and court costs on each conviction.

The charges stemmed from a Lucas County sheriff's department investigation into improper behavior accusations made by a township detective and two other officers. The detective alleged that in early spring of 1997, when the two were in a car, Mr. Koch reached across the seat, brushed his thigh, and touched his genital area. The other officers alleged that Mr. Koch joked with them about his propensity for sexual touching. The investigation included a report compiled by Ohio's Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation. Juergen Waldick, a Putnam County prosecutor who was appointed to the case, said the disorderly conduct charges were a closer reflection of the incidents involving Mr. Koch and the officers.

The judge will allow Mr. Koch the opportunity to have the charges expunged if no similar acts occur within the next year. Despite the plea, attorney Lorin Zaner maintained his client's innocence. "I was more than prepared to go to trial, but you can't turn down a minor misdemeanor," Mr. Zaner said after the hearing. Mr. Koch, who now lives in Cincinnati, resigned from the department last November. He had been employed in Cincinnati as a police officer for 25 years prior to taking the job in Sylvania Township in November, 1996

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