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Courts and Justice

North Royalton police officer accused of lying

about DUI arrest pleads guilty to
misdemeanor, will keep job
Updated: Nov. 20, 2019, 12:32 p.m. | Published: Nov. 20, 2019, 11:46 a.m.

Signed-in
North Royalton police officer Steven readers
Zahursky, left,now
sits can
next to defense attorney Henry Hilow on his first day of trial
Monday on charges of perjury. Cory Shaffer,
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By Cory Shaffer, cleveland.com NEW!

CLEVELAND, Ohio - A North Royalton police officer accused of lying in a police report
and on the witness stand about an April 2018 drunken-driving arrest struck a plea deal
Wednesday that will allow him to keep his job.

Steven Zahursky pleaded guilty to obstruction of official business, a second-degree

misdemeanor, on the third day of his trial on felony charges of perjury and tampering
with records and a misdemeanor count of falsification.

Special prosecutor John Ricotta dropped the perjury and falsification charges in
exchange for Zahurksy’s plea.

Judge Shirley Strickland Saffold accepted the deal and sentenced Zahursky to a year of
inactive probation. She also imposed a $50 fine. The deal also came with a
recommendation that Zahursky spend his year on inactive probation on restricted duty
in North Royalton.

Strickland Saffold told an anecdote in court Wednesday about being the subject of a
falsified police report herself several years ago when police mistook her vehicle for one
used in an armed robbery.

“I do not think this is the personification of a case where a police officer has
misbehaved,” Strickland Saffold said. “There’s so many instances where they do
misbehave, and this is not one of them.”

The judge also commented that she hoped Zahursky would be able to keep his job with
North Royalton police.

The plea deal came after opening statements were delivered on Tuesday but before the
first witness in the trial took the stand.

The case stems from an October 2018 court hearing in which Parma Municipal Court
Judge Timothy Gilligan dismissed all charges against 22-year-old Austin Smith-Skinner.
Cellphone video Smith-Skinner recorded during his April arrest was played during the
hearing and contradicted what Zahursky wrote in a police report and then testified to
earlier in the hearing about Smith-Skinner’s behavior during a field-sobriety test.

Zahursky’s attorney, Henry Hilow, told cleveland.com that Zahursky was taking
responsibility for being unprepared to testify at the Oct. 22 court hearing, and
maintained that Zahursky did nothing wrong during Smith-Skinner’s arrest.
 “You’re in a position where your prosecutors are relying on what you’re doing, and you
should be prepared to do it 100 percent,” Hilow said.
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