The charges have been dismissed and the chief of police apologized for Stormy Daniels’s arrest during a show at an Ohio strip club earlier this month, and now a whistleblower has come forward with emails that paint a picture of a setup by Columbus Police.
A whistleblower from the City of Columbus contacted the Advocate with numerous emails between several high-ranking Columbus police detectives and VICE officers.
Inside the emails are news clippings discussing Daniels’ planned appearance in Columbus, pictures of Daniels with President Donald Trump, videos of her dancing, and even a map to the club where she would be performing, all sent days before she would pull into town on her tour bus.
The bulk of the emails that the whistleblower provided are from the email account of Detective Shana Keckley. Keckley was one of the lead-arresting officers the night that the “sting” operation went down.
In an interview, the whistleblower said that “It is clear that Keckley and her fellow officers were there because of Stormy and only because of Stormy.” At the time, Daniels attorney and activist Michael Avenatti pegged the arrest as politically motivated from the start.
The Advocate reports that Keckley sent a string of emails to herself before the arrest; the most curious ones, though, came after.
After Daniels’ arrest that Wednesday night, the emails continue into the early morning hours of Thursday, but the contents are disturbing.
“I got the elements….we arrested Stormy this morning, she is in jail.” “Elements” are the burden police officers must meet in order to make an arrest.
In another email dated on July 12 at 3:50 a.m., Keckley writes to another police officer bragging about Daniel’s arrest — without mentioning her by name — saying, “You’re Welcome!!!!!….Thank me in person later.”
Avenatti, in a phone interview from Los Angeles, told the Advocate that he will “get to the bottom of this.” He also indicated that he’d been in touch with the Columbus district attorney, who has ordered some changes around the Ohio capitol since Daniels’s July 12 arrest.
City Attorney Klein’s office did not return calls to the Advocate, but issued a directive to Columbus Police to stop making arrests under the law used in Daniels’ cases. Klein told Avenatti that he would also investigate the motivations of the arrest, according to Avenatti.
Basta.