‘Untouchable’ attorney charged with sex trafficking
Arrest comes after report by USA TODAY Network
CINCINNATI – For more than 15 years, accusers of Michael Mearan felt as if they were screaming into the void.
In voices both strained with emotion and seemingly hardened with trauma, they stepped forward – cautiously, with trepidation – to level their allegations: that Mearan, a former Portsmouth, Ohio, city councilman and still-practicing attorney, trapped them in a cycle of drug abuse and sexual servitude.
They told their stories to agents with the Drug Enforcement Administration. To FBI investigators. To journalists with The Cincinnati Enquirer, part of the USA TODAY Network. The worst that came of it were the convictions of eight people who pleaded guilty to drug charges – and none of those eight were Mearan.
On Friday, everything changed. After decades of rumors and investigations, Mearan was arrested on human trafficking, racketeering and related charges. He was expected to be arraigned on Monday. Mearan, 74, has denied having anything to do with trafficking, prostitution or drugs.
Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost said otherwise.
“If Dante were around, he’d invent an eighth circle of hell for this guy,” he told The Enquirer late Friday, hours after Mearan was arrested outside his Portsmouth office on 18 felony charges. “His victims were utterly powerless. One of the problems with this case is everyone thought Mr. Mearan was untouchable.”
Some women did come forward – including Heather Hren, who spoke with Enquirer reporters for an investigation published in March 2019 and September 2019. She said Mearan had arranged for her to have sex with a Cincinnati doctor for $200 and arranged for a probation officer to take nude photos of her.
Mearan, she said, “trafficked me to his friends or pimped me out.”
Hren was one of 10 women initially interviewed by The Enquirer last year, most of whom asked that their names not be published.
Here’s what they alleged: Mearan, as a prominent attorney, would represent women facing drug charges. The lawyer promised them lenient sentences from judges he knew and parole officers willing to ignore probation requirements, but there was a catch: The women had to agree to have sex for money.
The sexual liaisons allegedly occurred in Portsmouth, Cincinnati and Columbus, but also outside Ohio.
The women were paid $200 to $2,000 per encounter, and in some of the instances, Mearan himself handled the payment, they said.
The Enquirer interviewed Mearan twice during the investigation. He consistently denied the allegations. At one point he said he didn’t know what a sex trafficker was and asked for a definition.
Mearan’s home was raided this spring by agents with the Ohio Bureau of Investigation. At the time, Mearan told reporters that any investigation into him would be fruitless because he led a “boring life.”
Investigators linked Mearan to 27 women who worked for him as prostitutes, including two believed to have been met with foul play – one was dead with “multiple traumas” in 2013, and another, Megan Lancaster, has been missing since April of that year.
Lancaster, who was 25 when she was last seen, kept names and phone numbers in color-coded notebooks that her sister-in-law, Kadie Lancaster, compiled and showed The Enquirer last year. The entries included notations like “dance for” and “men who give money.” Mearan's name and number appeared alongside both notations.
Kadie Lancaster said she was tagged in a post on Facebook on Friday evening with the news that Mearan had been arrested. She said she never thought it could happen.
“The whole thing was just surreal,” she said. “I just couldn’t believe it had finally came to a head.”
Linda Mills, 35, was one of the accusers featured in The Enquirer’s investigation. She said she was promised a modeling contract by a former Scioto County Sheriff ’s deputy, only to be sex-trafficked at age 15.
Told Friday of Mearan’s arrest, she started to cry. “No one’s ever believed me,” she said, her voice thick with tears.
Mearan operates his own law firm, the website for which describes him as humble and passionate and says he “has created quite the reputation for himself during his years of practice.”
Yost said now that Mearan has been charged, other victims may feel safe enough to come forward. He said he was impressed by the six women who are already a part of the case for their strength and resilience.
“When we called today and went around and talked to them to let them know ... there was a deluge of tears,” Yost said. “They never thought it would happen.”