Opinion: Disgraced detective earned prison stripes

Few stood up Thursday to defend former Sandusky County sheriff's detective Sean O'Connell — and they mostly mumbled — but plenty of people attended his sentencing hearing to condemn him.It was a sad day and a great day for law enforcement, Sheriff Chris Hilton said: Sad because a law enforcement officer could do so much harm to so many innocent people; but a great day because law enforcement and the court held him to account. Hilton, elected sheriff in 2016 in the aftermath of destruction left by a drug-addicted, now-former sheriff and a power hungry detective who hoped to oust him in a coup d'etat, is right.Watch: O'Connell's sentencing hearing at the Register's Youtube channelIt has become obvious over the years that O'Connell could not conduct a legitimate investigation. His last investigation — who killed Heather Bogle — is the one that caused his demise and led to his criminal conviction and imprisonment. But there is a trail of tears that stretches back 20 years to the wrongful death of Lee Naus in 1999.O'Connell failed to conduct a legitimate investigation into his death, just as he failed to properly investigate the death of Craig Burdine inside the Sandusky County jail in 2007, and the death of Jacob Limberios in a York Township home in 2012.He also failed to conduct a legitimate investigation of a state trooper's sexual involvement with a young boy, eventually settling on a "he was teaching the boy to masturbate" defense as an excuse not to charge the trooper with a sex crime. The trooper was eventually arrested and convicted, but only after Register readers — outraged by news coverage of that outrageous claim — demanded accountability.In each of those cases a bad cop — O'Connell — was protecting police officers accused of seriously compromised behavior, in our opinion. We don't know if O'Connell was protecting anyone during his investigation of Heather Bogle's death, or if he was just massively incompetent. But unlike those prior cases, the best in law enforcement saw the worst in law enforcement and fought to right the wrong. The good guys won a bittersweet victory on Thursday when O'Connell was called out on his relationship with the truth, and sentenced to spend two years in prison.Henry County Prosecutor Gwen Howe-Gebers — the woman who agreed to be special prosecutor after a half-dozen others (including Attorney General Mike DeWine) declined — has earned our admiration and our gratitude. She went where no one else would and she nailed it, holding O'Connell accountable for his wrongdoing winning a conviction and prison sentence. Voters in Henry County were smart to elect her. They would be smart to keep her as long as they can.BCI Agent Chris Hamberg, who led the investigation of O'Connell, didn't blink and he too has earned our respect and gratitude, on behalf of the public he served. O'Connell's corruption hurt these families; he hurt all of us.Visiting Judge Patricia Cosgrove, too, refused to look the other way, or even tilt her head, calling out O'Connell in the strongest terms: "All we want from our law enforcement officers is somebody who will fully investigate a case and present it fairly completely without bias or prejudice so that the truth may come out. That's all we ask. And you not only have dishonored yourself, Sean O'Connell, you have dishonored all the thousands of police officers across the country, men and women who get up every day risk their lives for our good and you've tarnished their reputation as well."Hilton, Howe-Geebers, Hamberg and Cosgrove, former Clyde police Chief Bruce Gower, and all the police chiefs in Sandusky County, all saw O'Connell's wrongdoing, and they all worked to correct it. On Thursday, they won, and they put the shine back on law enforcement.Read the story and WATCH the video of his sentencing hearing at sanduskyregister.comA deputy leads former Sandusky County sheriff's office detective Sean O'Connell out of the courtroom in handcuffs Thursday, Sept. 13. O'Connell was sentenced to two years in prison.