Law enforcement actions in bar undercover case causes firestorm

by Chad D. Baus

"Quis custodet ipsos custodes?", Juvenal

Who will guard the guards themselves?

That is the question OFCC asked after news broke that special prosecutor Gary Nasal (Miami Co.) had failed to obtain an indictment from a Shelby County grand jury after an eight-month "investigation" into Sheriff Kevin O'Leary's illegal release of CHL-holders' private, protected information to the Sidney Daily News.

Now, people in Ohio again have reason to ask the same question, and at least in part, about the same man.

The Dayton Daily News is reporting that Miami Co. Prosecutor Gary Nasal is under fire for having approved a plan from law enforcement to use a confiscated Ohio drivers’ license taken from a woman in an alcohol-related matter in an unrelated undercover sting. Although he now claims he "became concerned" about the plan, which involved twisting a loophole in a 2002 anti-identity-theft law written by Rep. Jim Hughes, the story says Nasal decided it was “in bounds” and approved the plan.

From the story:

A provision tucked into a new law on identity theft should be changed to prevent police from using anyone's identity — name, photo, driver's license, Social Security number — for law enforcement investigations, said state Rep. Jim Hughes, who wrote the law.

Hughes, R-Columbus, made the comments after revelations that state investigators provided Troy police with a confiscated driver's license to use in an undercover investigation of Total Xposure.

The Ohio Investigative Unit gave police the identification of Haley Dawson, 26, of Cincinnati. Police then gave it to confidential informant Michelle Szuhay, 24, a 2003 University of Dayton graduate from North Olmsted. Szuhay went undercover as Dawson and worked as a stripper at Total Xposure for three months in 2003, while local police and state liquor agents investigated allegations at the club.

Hughes said that kind of practice isn't what he intended when he wrote the anti-identity theft law in 2002.
"I am just amazed and flabbergasted to say the least," said Hughes, a former city and county prosecutor.
His intent was to allow law enforcement access to personal identifying information so that they could pursue identity thieves, Hughes said. He plans to amend a pending bill to prevent this from happening again.

The ACLU of Ohio called it a "very severe invasion of privacy."

"It's terrifying. What they did to Ms. Dawson, they could do to you, me, anybody in this state," said Jeff Gamso, ACLU of Ohio's legal director.

The DDN reports it is unclear whether any other police investigations across Ohio have used this technique.

Rich Cologie, the Ohio Investigative Unit's assistant agent-in-charge, told the newspaper the OIU, a division of the state Department of Public Safety, is conducting an administrative investigation into how and why Dawson's identification, which had been confiscated for an alcohol-related offense, was used.

Cologie said it's rare that OIU would use a confiscated identification in this manner, but he could not say specifically how often the technique is used, how many confiscated identifications are available for use, when the practice started or whose idea it was in this case.

Miami County Prosecutor Gary Nasal said OIU proposed using an ID, and it was his understanding it was standard operating procedure.

Nasal "became concerned" once he learned the driver's license wasn't a fake document, he said. Nasal said he researched it and found police were "in-bounds," but said he'd be reluctant to use the tactic again.

Neither Szuhay, 24, nor Dawson could be reached for comment. Dawson's father, David Dawson, declined to comment. Haley Dawson is the niece of Mike Dawson, a top aide to U.S. Sen. Mike DeWine, R-Ohio.

The DDN reports that the company that operated Total Xposure pleaded guilty in 2003 to two misdemeanor charges of furnishing alcohol without a permit.