Cook County Property Tax Appeal Board Commissioner Samantha Steele avoided a driver’s license suspension following a Friday court hearing on her DUI charges. Steele, a first-term Democratic official, was arrested last month after crashing her vehicle into parked cars on Chicago’s North Side. Prosecutors sought to suspend her license, but her defense successfully challenged the arresting officer’s procedures.
The crux of the defense rested on the actions of Chicago Police Department Officer Danny Yu. Steele’s attorney, John Fotopoulos, argued that Officer Yu, a seven-year veteran, made critical procedural errors during the arrest, suggesting a need for enhanced DUI training within the CPD. Specifically, Fotopoulos claimed Yu failed to properly warn Steele before she refused DUI testing. While Officer Yu maintained in his testimony, and in the police report, that Steele made inappropriate comments regarding his penis size, Fotopoulos countered that these comments were irrelevant to the issue of proper warnings and testing. He also alleged that Officer Yu made a partisan comment, claiming the officer said, “You Democrats are going to have to start following the law now.”
Crucially, neither the alleged inappropriate comments nor the purported partisan remark were captured on police body camera footage, as the cameras were deactivated at the hospital where Steele received treatment after the accident. However, videos from the accident scene showed Steele repeatedly identifying herself as an elected official and refusing to cooperate with officers, including refusing to exit her damaged vehicle.
Associate Judge Athena James Frentzas initially found Officer Yu credible and denied the motion to block the license suspension. However, after Fotopoulos’s objection and further questioning of Officer Yu, the judge reversed her decision. Steele left the courtroom without comment, and both Fotopoulos and prosecutors declined to comment further. The next hearing in the case is scheduled for February 14th.