OFFICER REDIRECTING LIFE AFTER CHARGES DROPPED

John Sess knows how much turmoil an investigation into a police officer's
actions can cause.

It took three years for accusations against him - that he admitted planting
marijuana on a suspect he arrested - to wind through the courts and reach
the Ohio Supreme Court before prosecutors decided to drop the charges.

''Naturally,'' Sess, 44, said from his Westwood home, ''it's been a
disruption, but we're coping and waiting for the next chapter to unfold.''

The next chapter, Sess hinted, was another trip through the courts, this
time to either get his police job back or to be compensated for the loss of
his 23-year career with the Cincinnati Police Division.

''There was filed, at the time he was dismissed, a request for an
arbitration to determine whether his firing was just,'' Fraternal Order of
Police attorney Don Hardin said Monday. ''There is an arbitration held in
abeyance.''

During an interview for a potential job transfer to the Regional Narcotics
Unit, Sess told supervisors that he planted marijuana in 1984 on Shadarle
Ragan.

During that interview, Sess signed a ''Rule 2.26'' document from the
Cincinnati Police Division manual of rules. The document required him to
tell the truth about the incident but granted him immunity in criminal
proceedings for what he revealed.

Sess later was indicted for tampering with evidence and records.

The courts, though, consistently ruled that Sess couldn't be prosecuted for
what he revealed in the Rule 2.26 document.

Prosecutors fought those rulings until last month when the prosecutor
dropped the charges, saying there wasn't enough evidence against Sess.

Sess fought the legal battle while working several menial jobs to help
support his family.

''I don't know if there is one word that will describe it,'' he said of the
last three years since his firing.