An Illinois Democrat who was charged with drunk driving after allegedly crashing her car repeatedly flexed being an “elected official” and sexually harassed an arresting officer, bodycam footage and police revealed.
Samantha Steele, a Cook County Board of Review commissioner, was arrested on the evening of November 10 after Chicago Police Department officers found two damaged cars near the 5000 block of North Ashland Avenue, WGN9 reported.
Upon a further search of the area, the cops found Steele, 45, lying on the ground near the vehicle she was driving — with an half-empty open bottle of wine on the passenger side floor.
Bodycam footage obtained by CWBChicago shows Steele refusing to hand over her driver’s license and insurance, opting to call her attorney instead:
“You’re involved in a traffic accident, I’d like to see your driver’s license and proof of insurance,” an officer can be heard telling Steele, who was seated back in the driver’s seat at this point.
“Ask him,” she replied, as she handed the cop her cell phone to speak with her lawyer.
The officer declined to speak to the lawyer before identifying the woman, and the attorney could be heard telling Steele to just hang up the call and wait until he arrived.
“I’ll wait for him,” she kept repeating, slurring her words.
The officer then asked if she wanted to be handcuffed, “because right now at this point you’re refusing to provide me—” before the apparently intoxicated woman cut him off with, “I am.”
“I’m an elected official… I don’t want any of this,” she said, before acknowledging that she hit “two” cars.
As she continued to refuse to provide her ID or insurance, she said the vehicle she was driving was her “friend’s car.”
The officer then asked Steele, who represents the Second District on the Board of Review, to call her attorney back so he could speak with him, as he sighed in frustration.
After the lawyer told the cop he would be there in about 25 minutes, he apologized to the officer and advised his client that “you have to give him your driver’s license and insurance information.”
Steele then struggled to open the car’s glove compartment and then finally produced proof of insurance.
In extended bodycam footage uploaded by CWBChicago, Steele continued to be combative with the responding officers and repeatedly refused to exit the vehicle:
“I don’t have to exit the car… I’ll wait for my attorney,” she responded to the cop’s demands.
“Ma’am… if you don’t exit the vehicle, I’m going to help you to exit — and you don’t want that,” he can be heard saying.
“You don’t want that,” Steele shot back. “I’m an elected official.”
Even after flexing her status as an official with Cook County, she still refused to provide her full name and only identified herself as “Sam.”
Meanwhile, her attorney was still begging her to comply with the officers’ requests over the phone and one of her friends arrived to persuade the cops to wait until her attorney got there.
The cops lost their patience after Steele declined a field sobriety test and put her in handcuffs.
“Can you give her five minutes,” the unidentified female friend repeatedly asked the cops.
After she finally agreed to do a field sobriety test as she was already being placed in a squad car, the arresting officer took mercy and uncuffed her.
“Alright c’mon, I’m giving you a chance,” he exclaimed.
Even once she was positioned on the sidewalk to do the test, she began requesting an ambulance with a smirk on her face.
After around 20 minutes, the footage shows the officers finally identifying the woman by retrieving her ID from her belongings themselves.
The video then shows an officer of east Asian descent re-cuffing Steele to take her to the hospital.
Her attorney arrived around this time and told her, “Don’t say anything.”
During her arrest, she asked the officer, “Is your penis that small?” several times, the Chicago Sun Times reported.
According to Frank Calabrese, a former aide of Steele’s who is currently suing her, the harassing comments about the officer’s anatomy were “racist” because he is Asian:
Samantha Steele was arrested by an Asian police officer, Danny Yu. Her comments about his "small penis" were racist. pic.twitter.com/KSRP3pIAwr
— Frank Calabrese (@FrankCalabrese) November 23, 2024
Calabrese also identified the man acting as her attorney at the scene as Cook County Commissioner Scott Britton:
🚨VIDEO! Cook County Board of Review Commissioner Samantha Steele DUI arrest video by the Chicago police. Cook County Commissioner Scott Britton is with Steele, acting as her criminal attorney on the scene. She crashed into two parked cars and was found on the sidewalk. pic.twitter.com/uK49krFmyU
— Frank Calabrese (@FrankCalabrese) November 23, 2024
After being discharged from the hospital, Steele was hit with one misdemeanor charge of driving under the influence of alcohol, the Daily Mail reported.
According to the outlet, Calabrese was fired from his position under Steele as an appeals analyst and communications director in May before filing a “whistleblower lawsuit” against her in July, “along with the county property-tax appeal agency and her top aide,” Dan Balanoff.
Calabrese’s complaint, obtained by WBEZ Chicago, accused Steele and Balanoff of pressuring him to “engage in political activity” against the two other commissioners on the board, Larry Rogers Jr. and George Cardenas.
