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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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