by Brooke Kaufman

According to a recent WCPO report, a 29-year-old Cincinnati police officer resigned from his post in 2020 after investigators uncovered he used a law enforcement database to contact and have sex with sex workers while on duty. Alexander Saulsbury pleaded guilty to felony charges of unauthorized use of a computer. He later accepted a plea agreement and was sentenced to one year of probation, per court documents. Saulsbury was asked to surrender his Ohio peace officer certification as part of the plea.

The Cincinnati Police Department did not release a statement at the time of Saulsbury’s resignation. WCPO discovered the resignation through “broader public records requests,” according to reporting from the Cincinnati Enquirer.

Cincinnati police union president Dan Hils said the department should have notified the public about Saulsbury’s misconduct. “Police officers are held to a high standard because of the trust the community place in them. Whenever an officer violates that trust and commits a felony, they deserve to be held accountable under the law and they don’t deserve to wear the badge,” Hils said.

On Monday, June 6, the Hamilton County Prosecutor’s Office released a statement regarding Saulsbury’s resignation: “In consultation with the Cincinnati Police Department, it was clear that the priority should be to ensure this individual was never able to be a police officer again. That goal was accomplished because of this deal.”

According to the investigation report, FBI agents received a tip that a woman had been paid to perform sex acts on a uniformed, on-duty officer. The woman got a text message in early 2017 from a person who wanted to meet. She initially left the meet-up location after seeing a police car, but the person in the car approached her and offered her a ride. Investigators identified this person as Saulsbury.

“He also hinted he wanted to engage her services,” the report says, but the woman feared she would be arrested. “Officer Saulsbury told her not to worry because he regularly paid for prostitutes for sex.”

The woman gave Saulsbury her phone number, which he used to “occasionally” text her. According to the report, Saulsbury and the woman had at least two encounters during which he paid her to perform sex acts.

A second woman cited in the report said Saulsbury approached her on multiple occasions in his police cruiser. On one such occasion, in the fall of 2018, he approached the woman and asked her if she knew she had open warrants. Saulsbury directed the woman to get into the backseat and drove her to a park; he then unzipped his pants and she “touched him” before leaving. In a separate encounter, Saulsbury paid the woman for oral sex.

Saulsbury joined the department in 2016. The women interviewed told investigators the encounters took place in 2017 and 2018. During the course of the investigation, officers found that Saulsbury had used the Regional Crime Information Center database to search the phone numbers of at least 13 women “affiliated with various escort services.”

Saulsbury, who was arrested in June 2020, pleaded guilty to the charges in October. The internal investigation was not approved by Chief Eliot Isaac until January 2021. Interim Chief Teresa Theetge would not provide a comment on the investigation to the Enquirer. Theetge was one of the Cincinnati police leaders who approved the final investigation report.

Saulsbury’s lawyer also declined to comment, essentially calling the case old news.

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