Column: Hiding behind the badge

It's difficult to know how, or why, a segment of the NBC TV network's "Dateline" became the "Sean O'Connell Hour." The former detective hogged what seemed to be about two-thirds of the program. "Jagged," a documentary, of sorts, chronicling the investigation into the April 2015 Heather Bogle homicide, was aired for the first time on Friday.O'Connell, who dodged interviews with me for years, was as disingenuous as always. In the past he granted short interviews to other local media companies and reporters, but those reporters had far less information than the Register, about his history of deception, and of botching criminal investigations."Dateline" didn't call out O'Connell on any of the many falsehoods he told — past or present — or challenge his version of events concerning the Bogle investigation. They interviewed him — sometime last year — long after he quit his job and after he was arrested and charged with felonies for falsifying the Bogle probe.He wore a dark suit and drove a Cadillac SUV during the interview with the national news program, impersonating the person he used to be. One question I would have asked is: "What's a detective, who's lost his livelihood and is awaiting trial for falsifying a criminal investigation doing driving a Cadillac?"Program host Josh Mankiewicz didn't ask him that, but when I read these words I hear them in his voice. Westerhold was interviewed by NBC correspondent Josh Mankiewicz in March for a "Dateline" segment that first aired on March 29,2018Watch: Outtakes with Mankiewicz interviewing WesterholdNBC's failure to challenge O'Connell's false assertions also disappointed. They knew he was out as a detective, arrested and awaiting trial when they interviewed him, and by the time they finished editing the program before airing it they knew he'd been sent to prison.The network did include a portion of his sentencing hearing in the program, but that clip failed to include this admonishment from the judge that put his sorry ass in proper perspective."All we want from our law enforcement officers is somebody who will fully investigate a case and present it fairly and completely without bias or prejudice so that the truth may come out," visiting Judge Patricia Cosgrove told him. "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."Visiting Judge Patricia Cosgrove addresses O'Connell during his sentencing Thursday, Sept. 13, 2018.Indeed. The arrogant former detective was all that, and more. He terrorized his victims, which include the Bogle family and other families, and innocent people he charged with crimes they didn't commit. The detective was an out-of-control monster obsessed with his own power over others, "hiding behind the badge," as one victim described it.NBC, it turned out, was an easy mark for a scalawag. O'Connell, during his sentencing, told the judge he was "throw(ing) the prosecutor a bone," by giving him the false evidence about who killed Heather Bogle.I would ask him, "What did you mean by that detective? That you would give the prosecutor factual information sometime later? When, later?"I recently asked the state prison department to allow the Register to interview O'Connell, but the request was denied. For years we emailed our questions to him — about all the other cases he compromised and the families he harmed before the Bogle investigation — and also asked O'Connell to be a guest on our public affairs talk program, "Between the Lines." He always declined the invitations.O'Connell's complaining about the Register dominated what little communication existed between us and him. He complained in broad and vague ways, that our news coverage about him and about how he conducted investigations wasn't accurate. But he never gave us specifics or any detail, or said, what it was exactly he was claiming to be inaccurate. O'Connell was a first-class whiner, indeed, hiding behind the badge.Here's a question I wish "Dateline" had asked."Why did you give evidence you knew to be false to the prosecutor?"Keyona Bor, the woman O'Connell falsely accused, lived at the apartment complex where Heather Bogle's body was discovered. O'Connell tells Mankiewicz she became a suspect because "a cadaver dog alerted" at her door. But that's not correct, the sheriff's office told me this week."The cadaver dog wasn't brought in until much later," Sandusky County sheriff's Detective Zack Zender said. "It didn't alert until the second search warrant, and it turned out to be a false alert."The disgraced detective didn't mention those details, showing the same pattern of fictionalizing fact the way he did with the prosecutor. This time he was providing false and misleading information about the Bogle homicide to the NBC team, and to the public. A dirty cop will never change his (prison) stripes. Former Detective Sean O'Connell was interviewed by NBC TV network's "Dateline" in 2018, prior to his sentencing in September 2018 on a conviction related to falsifying evidence in the Heather Bogle homicide case. Sean P. O'Connell, Ohio prison Inmate No. A753385.