YOUNGSTOWN — Two lawyers with the Ohio Attorney General’s Office were present for a hearing in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court on Thursday for Steve Kent, an Austintown Township trustee charged with three counts of sexual battery and one count of tampering with evidence.

The charges were brought for behavior allegedly connected to Kent’s position as a Poland Township police officer.

Kent also was present with his attorney, John Juhasz, but officials said no resolution in the case took place Thursday, and another pretrial hearing is now scheduled for 11 a.m. July 21.

Judge John Durkin is presiding over the case, but Mahoning County Prosecutor Paul Gains appointed the Ohio Attorney General’s Office to handle the prosecution at the same time the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation was called in to investigate the alleged crimes, said attorney general spokesman Steve Irwin.

Kent is accused of of committing the offenses on several days in April, May and June of 2021.

Poland Township trustees fired Kent from his job as school resource officer March 2.

Kent’s discharge letter from Poland police Chief Greg Wilson and trustees Eric Ungaro, Joanne Wollet and Edward Kempers states that he was “being discharged for illegal and immoral acts with an underaged student at a school where you acted as the school resource officer.”

Kent, 52, of Starwick Drive, Canfield, was elected an Austintown trustee in the November 2019 general election. At the time, he also was a member of the Mahoning County OVI Task Force.