ST. LOUIS (AP) - A fired suburban St. Louis police lieutenant was convicted Thursday of conspiring to arrest a mayoral candidate on false allegations.
The conviction of 35-year-old Steven Blakeney on three criminal civil rights charges is one of several cases of wrongdoing involving public officials in the small St. Louis County town of Pine Lawn.
The U.S. attorney's office said in a news release that the false arrest happened in March 2013 while Blakeney was working for the Pine Lawn police force. Witnesses testified during his trial that he ordered another person to falsely report that the mayoral candidate had stolen a campaign poster from a business and arranged for the candidate to be arrested.
The candidate wasn't named in the release. But during the April 2015 corruption trial of former Pine Lawn Mayor Sylvester Caldwell, a witness testified that he helped frame Nakisha Ford, who was running against Caldwell. Television news outlets were waiting at the Pine Lawn police station when she arrived. Caldwell won re-election.
Caldwell's trial ended when he agreed to plead guilty and resign as mayor of the town of 3,300 residents in northern St. Louis County. He was sentenced to nearly three years in prison.
Also in April 2015, former Pine Lawn Mayor Adrian Wright sued the city, alleging that he was falsely arrested for traffic violations as part of a smear campaign orchestrated by Caldwell. Charges against Wright eventually were dropped, but Wright said in his lawsuit that he was forced to do a "perp walk" in front of local TV news crews. Wright had been critical of Caldwell.
Blakeney is set to be sentenced on May 4 on charges of conspiracy against rights, deprivation of rights and falsification of records. The charges carry a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison, the release said.