Police officer ‘knows he’ll get away with it’
When Randall Mayhew was reinstated as a Columbus police officer in January, it didn’t really shock Hannah Estabrook.
It did, however, sadden Estabrook, who was for several years a docket coordinator with the Changing Actions to Change Habits (CATCH) Court, a special court for prostitutes and women involved in human trafficking. She is now helping to build Sanctuary Night, a drop-in center on Sullivant Avenue that will focus on providing food, showers and other services with a focus on those women.
“I was really disappointed, particularly because I know some of the women who were specifically hurt by officer Mayhew and they have overcome so much already,” Estabrook said. “The fact they found some courage to share their stories, they were even in some cases willing to be witnesses in his case. It’s so remarkable to me and to respond to that courage with this kind of potentially crushing blow is devastating to me.”
Mayhew, 49, was charged with soliciting prostitution and dereliction of duty in Franklin County Municipal Court. He pleaded guilty under a plea agreement to the dereliction charge. He was fired by the city in 2018 following an internal police investigation, but was reinstated in November 2019 by arbitrator Jerry Fullmer, who determined Mayhew should get his job back because the city had not fully proved just cause for his termination.
Mayhew admitted in the 2018 internal investigation to having known prostitutes in his patrol vehicle, but denied ever having sexual encounters with the women, according to police records. He told then-Columbus police chief Kim Jacobs that he was talking to the women for “investigative purposes.”
Within days after the arbitrator’s ruling, Mayhew was again suspended as a new internal investigation into his alleged misconduct with prostitutes was launched dating back to 2015.
That investigation determined Mayhew had violated police division policy, but
Thomas Quinlan, then-Columbus police chief, said there was not enough evidence to support many of the allegations against Mayhew and led to Mayhew staying on the force.
‘He knows he’ll get away with it’: Randall Mayhew reinstated
According to information released by police in January, the second internal investigation into Mayhew had issues with a lack of first-hand witnesses and polygraph test results, particularly involving one of the women who came forward.
“I understand there are people who hoped for a different outcome to this case,” Quinlan said in a January statement. “I can’t sit here as chief and say I’m content with it either ... We follow the evidence we have. We don’t bend the rules or cut corners to get an outcome we want.”
“This whole thing makes you want to vomit,” Lori Moyer, a former prostitute who told The Dispatch she was among the women impacted by Mayhew’s actions. “I want them to make him admit what he did and say, ‘I’m sorry.’ He needs to humble himself and be honest and he just won’t. Now he knows he’ll get away with it.”
Mayhew declined a request from The Dispatch made through the Fraternal Order of Police for comment on this story.
Moyer, now 53, is no longer walking the streets of Sullivant Avenue, but she said she hasn’t forgotten one
of the first interactions she had with Mayhew nearly 10 years ago.
Moyer said she was walking with a friend when a police cruiser pulled up and stopped them.
“It was right in front of (Burroughs) elementary school,” Moyer said. “I thought, ‘Here we go,’ when he asked us our names.”
Mayhew got both women’s names and turned to his cruiser computer to see if either woman had active arrest warrants.
“I watched him pretend to look her up, and I was standing right there and could see his computer, and (Mayhew) say she wasn’t in the system,” Moyer said. “It surprised both of us because we both knew she’d been arrested.”
Then, Moyer said, Mayhew opened up his wallet and handed her a $100 bill, telling her he was going to take Moyer’s friend to be fingerprinted at a nearby police substation and to move along.
“I beat it,” Moyer said. “I told her to meet me at our meeting spot.”
About 30 minutes later, Moyer’s friend showed up with her own $100 bill. Moyer said she was told Mayhew had taken her friend to a nearby graveyard and engaged in sexual conduct with her before telling her not to say anything about their encounter.
Moyer said at the time $100 was a lot of money, particularly for someone with a drug habit. She said she got used to seeing Mayhew and he would often ask her, as one
of the older prostitutes on Sullivant, where the younger women were.
“He was a smarmy, smarmy piece of (expletive),” Moyer said.
A fear of retaliation from the Columbus police officer
Another woman contacted by The Dispatch agreed to talk, but only if her name was withheld because she said she was fearful of retaliation. The 42-year-old said Mayhew solicited her several years ago.
The woman said she didn’t initially know Mayhew was a police officer because he was in a regular vehicle and had no radio or badge to identify himself.
“I never knew his name,” the woman said.
When she saw a photo of Mayhew and realized he was a cop, the woman said she was fearful to say anything because she would be considered a snitch by others on the street. She also didn’t think anyone would believe her if she did come forward.
“He told me after that I’d go to jail or he’d let me go if I didn’t say anything,” the woman said. “Every time after that, he’d tell me I had a warrant.”
The woman said Mayhew never paid her for their sexual encounters, which happened every one or two weeks for about a year. She said Mayhew would tell her she had a warrant for her arrest and if she didn’t engage in sexual conduct, she’d go to jail.
The woman said her fears about reporting Mayhew were heightened dramatically after Donna Castleberry was shot and killed on Aug. 23, 2018 by Andrew Mitchell, a Columbus police vice officer who was working undercover. According to court records, Mitchell had picked Castleberry up and parked his unmarked vehicle up against a wall on the passenger side so she couldn’t get out.
Mitchell did not have his badge or radio when he attempted to arrest Castleberry for prostitution and she asked for proof he was a police officer, court records indicate. Castleberry is believed to have stabbed Mitchell in the hand and jumped into the back seat of the vehicle in an attempt to escape before she was fatally shot by Mitchell.
Why sex workers don’t come forward when an officer abuses power
Mitchell, a member of the Division of Police for three decades, was indicted in federal court in March 2019 on three counts of deprivation of rights for using his police authority to hold two women against their will, granting them freedom only in exchange for sexual favors; two counts of witness tampering and one count each of obstruction of justice and making false statements. He retired from the force shortly afterward.
In April 2019, Mitchell was indicted by a Franklin County grand jury on charges of murder and voluntary manslaughter in Castleberry’s death.
“They’re getting away with so much,” the former prostitute who requested anonymity said. “We’re nobody, we’re addicts, we’re prostitutes.”
Estabrook said that reasoning is exactly why women don’t come forward. Mayhew’s reinstatement will have a further chilling effect on the women who do find the courage to report wrongdoing, she said.
“If we’re going to encourage women to speak up and tell their stories, we have to show them it makes a difference when they do so,” she said.
Estabrook said police have for years treated women engaged in the sex trade who come forward with skepticism, especially given their criminal histories and addictions, or only take them seriously for a moment. She said many women have told her stories about police officers soliciting them, threatening them with arrest in exchange for sexual favors or other misconduct. Mayhew was just one of them, and his was a name she heard repeatedly.
“They don’t want it to be a PR problem so they’ll provide a band-aid solution, but in the end they’re still going to win,” Estabrook said.
Mayhew to be reassigned to another Columbus area after training
Former chief Quinlan said in January that Mayhew would undergo training to update his police officer certification and then be assigned to another area of the city. He would not patrol the West Side, where he had spent most of his career.
As of the second week in March, Mayhew had not completed his training and is not yet back on patrol.
“I hate to make the parallel, but it reminds me of the Catholic Church trope of moving priests to a different parish once you find out they’ve abused their power in some way,” Estabrook said.
“That’s what we’re doing with this officer. We’re just shifting him to a different area. ... That’s not going to do much good, unfortunately.”
Both Moyer and the other former prostitute who spoke with The Dispatch said they feared moving Mayhew to another part of the city would not change his behavior.
“There’s girls everywhere,” the woman who requested anonymity said. “It’s a big blow to the survivors and the women recovering. I’m trying to move on, but I want to prevent what I went through from being their future.”