Gardner, who has become infamous in East Cleveland for his glib Facebook postings about the department’s arrests, did not speak during the brief hearing and declined to speak to reporters after he was booked into the Cuyahoga County Jail and released.
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- East Cleveland’s suspended police chief, Scott Gardner, pleaded not guilty through an attorney during his Wednesday arraignment on charges that accuse him of failing to pay taxes and stealing from the city.
The charges also accuse Gardner of grand theft during the same period. The indictment alleges Gardner took money from the “Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 39 and/or the City of East Cleveland and/or the East Cleveland Police Department.” The funds taken were more than $7,500.
The former officers took a combined $900 in cash bribes -- including once in uniform outside the city’s police department -- from a man in exchange for fabricating police reports the man planned to use to rip off his insurance company for $10,000, prosecutors said.are set to appear on Oct. 4.
Records show that authorities began investigating Gardner in 2012 after a botched raid at a suspected illegal gambling shop in East Cleveland. Emails show that prosecutors began looking into Gardner for possible obstructing justice and tampering with evidence charges, but Gardner was never charged with either of those crimes. The investigation revealed that the business was a client of Gardner’s security business, CPACS, and that CPACS had under-reported its income on tax filings.
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