Former Boardman officer charged with impersonating convicted of lesser offense

Staff report

BROOKFIELD

Stephen Kendall, a former Boardman police officer charged with impersonating a police officer as a result of a 2012 traffic stop in Vernon Township, has pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of disorderly conduct.

Kendall, 41, of Salem, pleaded no contest to the fourth-degree misdemeanor Thursday in Eastern District Court before Judge Robert M. Platt Jr.

Platt found him guilty and fined him $150 and placed him on six months’ reporting probation.

Kendall was fired from his job with the Boardman Police Department in 2007 after being convicted of gross sexual imposition involving a 17-year-old girl.

But during a May 13, 2012, traffic stop, Kendall appeared to be trying to show the officer who made the stop a credit card with a Fraternal Order of Police insignia on it, so the officer asked Kendall if he was a police officer.

Kendall said “Yes,” and that he worked for the Boardman Police Department. He also produced a worn but valid Boardman Police Department ID card, police said.

Kendall was charged with the impersonating offense in 2012, but he never appeared in court on the charge until being arrested in September 2013 on a warrant.