Two of the Columbus, Ohio vice cops who arrested AVN Hall of Famer Storm Daniels during her strip act at a club there in 2018 are now facing a lawsuit by a different strip club in the city. That club, Kahoots, claims in federal court filings that a vendetta by vice officers Steve Rosser and Whitney Lancaster ultimately cost the club so much money that owners were forced to shut down, according to a report by WOSU Radio in Columbus.
Daniels was arrested by Rosser, Lancaster and other vice cops in July of 2018, supposedly for violating a local ordinance against nude performers making physical contact with club patrons.
But the charges were dropped within less than 24 hours, and an internal police department investigation ruled the arrest “improper.” The two officers were relieved of their duties—and the Columbus vice unit was disbanded.
The Daniels arrest was just one of several scandals that led Columbus to scrap its vice squad, however. In April of last year, dancers at the Kahoots strip club filed a lawsuit against Rosser and Lancaster, saying that the officers unfairly targeted them for arrest as part of a revenge scheme against the club.
The club had fired a bouncer who reportedly worked for Rosser as a confidential informant. Rosser then threatened to file “a bunch of tickets” against the club and close it down unless the bouncer was rehired, according t allegations in the dancers’ lawsuit.
Now, the club’s owners say in a federal lawsuit filed January 7 that the alleged vendetta by Rosser and Lancaster did, in fact, result in Kahoots going out of business.
The two cops, the lawsuit says, cited several dancers for supposed violations of the same “no touching” ordinance under which Daniels had also been arrested. But the Columbus city attorney later dropped the charges, because the officers working undercover, on duty, did not count as “patrons” of the club.
The earlier lawsuit by six dancers against the city and the two cops was recently settled for a sum of about $30,000 per dancer, the dancers’ lawyer, Bart Keyes, told WBNS TV. Keyes also represents the Kahoots owners in the new lawsuit. He said that the financial terms of the settlement with the six dancers has not yet been okayed by the Columbus city council.
Last November, the city council greenlit a $450,000 payment to Daniels, to settle her lawsuit over her arrest by Rosser and Lancaster.
According to the WBNS report, the city has so far paid out approximately $600,000 in settlements directly resulting from improper actions by Rosser and Lancaster.
Photo By WCMH-TV YouTube Screen Capture
