Former detective arrested

FREMONT — Former Sandusky County sheriff's detective Sean O'Connell could join his ex-boss in a state prison cell next year if he's convicted on some, or all, of the charges in a grand jury indictment returned Friday.O'Connell, 53, faces four felonies, including three counts of tampering with evidence and one count of unauthorized use the Ohio Law Enforcement Gateway, the crime database. His indictment also included four misdemeanor charges of falsification, coercion, dereliction of duty and obstructing official business."When you take the oath to become a police officer, you swear you'll uphold the law to the best of your ability," Sandusky County Sheriff Chris Hilton told the Register. "It's a dark day for law enforcement when we have to charge one of our own."All charges, except the law enforcement gateway offense, are related to O'Connell's 18-month Heather Bogle homicide investigation, Ohio attorney general spokesman Dan Tierney told the Register. Bogle's body was found in the trunk of a car on April 10, 2015.Henry County prosecutor Gwen Howe-Gebers, appointed in July to serve as the special prosecutor over the O'Connell investigation, presented evidence to the grand jury Friday morning. Grand jurors returned the indictment, and police arrested O'Connell in Fremont shortly after 6 p.m. He was transferred to the Erie County Jail pending arraignment.The exact circumstances that lead to O'Connell's criminal charges aren't yet known, and the state did not divulge details when asked. Tierney deferred additional questions to Howe-Gebers, who couldn't immediately be reached for comment late Friday. Hilton, who was elected in November 2016, said his team of investigators could see problems with O'Connell's investigation after they took it over in January this year."When we took the case back, my lead detective, Nick Kotsopoulos, and I looked at it, and it seemed things weren't done thoroughly and that not all help was being utilized," Hilton said. "There were things we questioned when we took the case back."Botching probeO'Connell led the Bogle investigation for 18 months but came under heavy criticism from family members and other law enforcement for mishandling the probe.The detective was accused by family members of misleading them and failing to follow up leads they'd given him about potential suspects. Some family members asked the FBI for help, at one point, and some wanted O'Connell removed from the investigation altogether. Former Clyde police Chief Bruce Gower, at one point during the probe, suggested O'Connell needed to get over being "butthurt" by criticism and put his focus on the investigation. O'Connell failed to follow basic investigatory practices, Gower and other police leaders, said.The Register also chronicled contradictory information about the Bogle investigation O'Connell provided to different media companies and reporters at different times. It also documented numerous apparent misstatements by him about past investigations he'd led, from court documents and from family members of other crime victims.Those misstatements and the concerns from the other families appeared to be eerily similar to complaints from the Bogle family about how O'Connell was conducting himself. During the 18 months he was in charge, O'Connell identified three people as suspects in Bogle's brutal slaying, all of whom were later exonerated.Bogle's body was found in the trunk of her car a day after her family reported her missing after she failed to pick up her daughter from school. She'd been shot and was bludgeoned."This isn't a witch hunt or a personal agenda," Hilton said, referring to O'Connell's arrest. "We're doing what we believe needed to be done. Nobody at my office gains personal satisfaction from this. We're just trying to do the right thing. This should give us a little more closure, and, in some ways, will have a direct impact on the suspects named (by O'Connell) last year." Sean O'Connell booked into the Erie County Jail Dec. 22, 2017.