YOUNGSTOWN — A filing in the 7th District Court of Appeals argues evidence in the trial of former Poland Township police officer Steve Kent last year did not prove he wiped out evidence on his cellphone “when an official investigation was underway or when Kent should have known that one was likely to be initiated.”

It states the decision by Judge John Durkin of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court to sentence Kent to one year in prison after a jury found him guilty of tampering with evidence, a third-degree felony, also was an error.

Kent was a township police officer who worked as a school resource officer in the Poland school district at the time he was accused of engaging in sexual battery of a student who attended the high school. He also was an Austintown Township trustee at the time.

He lost all of those positions as a result of his criminal case and tampering conviction. The jury found him not guilty of the sexual battery charges. The judge sentenced Kent, 54, to one year in prison Sept. 20, 2023, on the tampering charge and had Kent taken into custody.

The 7th District Court of Appeals ordered Kent released from custody pending the outcome of Kent’s appeal of his conviction and sentencing.

The filing Tuesday details the reasons why Kent thinks his conviction should be eliminated or his prison sentence changed to a nonprison punishment.

The sexual battery charges were based on allegations Kent forced or coerced a then 16- to 17-year-old student to perform oral sex on three occasions in 2021.

The tampering with evidence conviction was based on Kent performing a factory reset on his cellphone June 6, 2021, after Poland parent Carla Bobbey confronted Kent about the girl telling Bobbey of the girl’s allegations against him. A factory reset wipes out the photos, text messages and other data on a cellphone.

The new filing, submitted by attorney John Juhasz, who also was Kent’s attorney during his trial, argues at the time Kent performed the factory reset, Bobbey had not threatened to contact police or the school district about the girl’s allegations, only the girl’s father and Kent’s wife.

The filing contains quotes from the trial, in which Bobbey stated that after confronting Kent on June 5, 2021, with the girl’s allegations, Bobbey told Kent he was “to no longer be contacting her. I said because if you don’t stop, I’m going to tell her father and your wife.”

Without Bobbey having threatened to contact the police or school officials, Kent had no reason to believe an investigation into the allegations had already begun “or was likely to be instituted, or had purpose to impair the investigation,” the new filing states.

The law on tampering with evidence requires a person to have taken some action to hinder an investigation while “knowing that an official proceeding or investigation is in progress or is about to be or likely to be instituted,” the filing states. But no such investigation was threatened or already underway, it states.

Prosecutors from the Ohio Attorney General’s Office told jurors in opening statements they would provide evidence that Bobbey threatened to call police, Juhasz said. “That’s what the jurors heard from (prosecutors), but not what they would hear when the evidence was presented. Bobbey made a conditional threat and it had nothing to do with the authorities,” only the girl’s father and Kent’s wife, the filing states.

“Bobbey said nothing about calling the police or even the school authorities,” Juhasz stated. An investigation into allegations of Kent’s involvement with the student began June 7, 2021, but Kent learned of it June 8, 2021, the Juhasz filing states.

Bobbey testified during Kent’s trial when she confronted him with the girl’s allegations June 5, 2021, Kent told her he would quit his job as a police officer and leave town. “I told him ‘No, that’s not how this is going to go. Turn in your badge. I don’t want you around children,'” she was quoted as testifying.

The Kent filing argues if the appeals panel declines to throw out Kent’s tampering conviction, they should instead find that Durkin’s sentence was “excessive and disproportionate.”

It argued that because Kent has no prior criminal record except this “non-violent felony and where there was no harm to the victim,” should not have been sentenced to prison.

Have an interesting story? Contact Ed Runyan by email erunyan@vindy.com.