Staff photo / Ed Runyan.... Austintown Township Trustee Steve Kent, right, talks with his attorney, John Juhasz, during an evidence suppression hearing Wednesday in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court. Judge John Durkin ruled evidence seized from Kent’s cellp hone is admissible.

YOUNGSTOWN — Judge John Durkin of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court ruled that information collected from former Poland police officer Steve Kent’s cellphone will not be kept from evidence.

Durkin ruled Wednesday after testimony from Kent, Poland Township police Chief Greg Wilson and Special Agent Ed Carlini of the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation.

Wilson and Carlini seized Kent’s phone June 8, 2021, during an investigation into allegations that Kent committed sexual battery against a Poland Seminary High School student while he was a school resource officer.

He is charged with three counts of sexual battery and one count of tampering with evidence, all third-degree felonies; and is accused of having a sexual relationship with the student.

Poland Township trustees fired Kent after the allegations surfaced. He also is a trustee in Austintown and has resisted calls from some residents to resign from the position.

Kent’s attorney, John Juhasz, sought suppression of the information from the phone on the grounds it was seized without a warrant and without consent to search r seize it. Kent was “not advised of his right to consent to a seizure (of the phone) or to demand that the government obtain a search warrant.”

The motion also sought to suppress items recovered with a search warrant from social media accounts on TikTok, an Apple iCloud account and his Life360.com account. During testimony, Carlini said Life360 is a GPS-related application that tracks the movements of people, such as a relatives or others.

Carlini said no information was obtained from Kent’s phone because it had been “wiped” of information or set to factory reset, meaning all data on the phone was eliminated and the phone set back to its original state as when it was new.

Carlini said he read Kent his Miranda warning, such as telling him he had the right to remain silent, and Kent made no statements to Carlini regarding the investigation or to any law enforcement officers in the investigation.

Attorney Kara Keating, senior assistant Ohio attorney general, who is prosecuting the case, asked Kent a few questions, but nothing about the allegations. When Keating asked if he gave the passcode to his phone to Carlini, Kent said yes.

Durkin said he was ruling against the suppression because there can be “exigent circumstances where evidence can be destroyed or concealed,” and police “have the ability to seize personal property and as long as there is a search warrant that is obtained without delay; then there is no violation of the defendant’s Fourth Amendment rights.”

He said testimony during the hearing was convincing that law enforcement felt the need to seize the phone to guarantee that information on the phone would not be destroyed or altered, so “there was no requirement prior to June 8 that law enforcement obtain a search warrant to seize that phone.”

Another hearing is set for July 7. Kent’s trial is set for Aug. 7.