Investigation reveals mistaken-arrest case

Tanya Robinson was cleared of drug-related charges.
COLUMBUS (AP) -- For three weeks, police said she was a stripper named Gia who sold marijuana and had ties to a Columbus gang.
But 31-year-old Tanya Robinson, an emergency-room nurse and mother of two, was cleared of those charges when officers realized they'd nabbed the wrong woman.
An investigation by the Ohio State Highway Patrol has shed some light on what led to Robinson's mistaken arrest in late June.
Nearly a year and a half before Robinson's arrest, a stripper who called herself Gia sold $50 worth of marijuana to Harold Kolsky, an undercover agent with the Ohio Investigative Unit. The woman told Kolsky her name was Tanya Robinson.
The agent checked the name against Bureau of Motor Vehicle records and said when he saw her driver's license photo that he had a "gut feeling" Robinson was Gia.
What happened
Columbus police detective Douglas Eckhart took the case and issued a warrant for Robinson's arrest June 9.
Twenty days later, she was arrested as her 5- and 7-year-old daughters watched at her home in the Columbus suburb of Reynoldsburg. She left the girls with a baby sitter, telling them, "They think that Mommy did something that she didn't do."
Robinson spent 30 hours in police custody, and her mug shot was included in a media montage put together that day for a news conference on gang-related arrests in Columbus.
"Not only am I being arrested falsely, it's also portrayed to my community that I'm a gang member," Robinson said she recalled thinking.
Three weeks later, Robinson and her attorney, Don Wolery, had their first meeting with Kolsky and Eckhart.
"When Tanya walked in, they both look at her and say almost simultaneously, 'It's not her,"' Wolery said.
The charges were dropped, and Robinson was allowed to return to work at Mount Carmel West Hospital, where she'd been put on unpaid leave.
With the release of the highway patrol's internal investigation, Kolsky was placed on a 10-day suspension for his error.
"Obviously, we are very concerned about this and took this matter very seriously," said Susan Raber, spokeswoman for the Ohio Department of Public Safety.
Kolsky's union representative said he is appealing the suspension, which has ended.
Previous malfeasance
The Ohio Investigative Unit falls under the Department of Public Safety and is mainly responsible for enforcing the state's liquor laws. A new executive director took control of the unit in August and has been trying to turn it around.
Earlier this year, the unit disciplined an agent for helping stores avoid penalties for selling tobacco to minors.
Other officers were disciplined after they handcuffed a Columbus parking lot attendant who asked them to pay a $5 parking fee, then forced him into their car and drove him around for a half-hour before releasing him.