During her arrest earlier this month for driving under the influence of alcohol after crashing a car in Uptown, Cook County Board of Review Commissioner Samantha Steele repeatedly told police officers she was an elected official, made crude comments about one of the arresting officers and refused to cooperate with officer requests, public records released to the Tribune show.
Steele, 45, was arrested on the DUI charge just before 9 p.m. on Nov. 10 near Ashland and Winnemac avenues. A police report of the incident as well as video footage of the scene from body cameras worn by four Chicago Police officers provide the most vivid details yet of the arrest. The Tribune obtained the report and the footage from Chicago Police in response to its public records request.
Steele is one of three members of the Cook County Board of Review, which plays a significant role in the world of property taxes as it adjudicates property tax appeals.
According to the arrest report, officers saw two crashed cars near the intersection. One officer reported that Steele was lying on the sidewalk near the accident and that Steele told him she had hit another car. At that time, the officer wrote in the report that Steele’s “eyes were bloodshot and glassy. I also detected a strong odor of alcoholic beverage coming from her breath as she spoke.”
The earliest body-worn camera footage shows Steele in the front seat of the car she was driving, a Honda Accord, which had a badly damaged front bumper. Officers repeatedly asked Steele to show them her driver’s license and proof of insurance, which she declined to give.
At one point while being questioned by police, Steele handed her phone to the officer and said, “It’s my attorney,” according to the footage. Cook County Commissioner Scott Britton has confirmed to the Tribune he was acting as her attorney that night, but he declined to comment further. Britton specializes in insurance defense and commercial litigation and has said he is not representing Steele going forward in the DUI case.
In the body-cam footage, Britton could be heard on a speakerphone saying, “Just hang up, Samantha, tell them I’m on my way.”
Steele repeatedly called Britton during her interactions with police as he drove from several miles away to meet her at the scene. Some of the audio from the encounters is redacted.
“I need to wait for him,” Steele told the officer. “It’s fine, I’ll wait for him.”
“Okay, ma’am. You don’t need to make this thing more complicated than it already is, it’s just an accident, I just need to see your driver’s license,” the officer said. “Do you want me to handcuff and arrest you?”
“No.”
“Because right now at this point you’re refusing to provide me any–”
“I am,” Steele said.
“You are, you realize that, right?”
“Yes. I’m an elected official.”
“You’re what?”
“I don’t want any of this,” she said. “I’ll wait for him.”
“You were involved in an accident, you hit several cars,” the officer responded.
“Two,” she said. “Because someone pulled out in front of me.”
Steele eventually turned over her license but had trouble opening the dashboard; she told officers the white Accord she was driving belonged to a friend.
She also rebuffed requests to exit the car and take a field sobriety test.
“Ma’am, if you don’t exit the vehicle, I’m going to help you to exit and you don’t want that,” one officer said.
“You don’t want that. I’m an elected official,” she replied.
“I actually do, elected official of what?”
“Cook County.”
“Cook County, you’re elected, which office? What’s your name?”
She extended her hand, “I’m Sam.”
“Sam who?”
Britton, on the phone, again advised Steele to exit the car. When she again declined to take a field sobriety test, she was handcuffed and placed in the back of a squad car. She then agreed to take the field sobriety test, but during it, appeared “to be swaying front to back during the interview,” the arrest report stated.
She vacillated in statements about hitting her head during the crash and whether she wanted medical attention. An ambulance had already arrived, however, and she was eventually taken to Weiss hospital.
Body camera footage from two officers inspecting the car showed an open but corked bottle of wine in the footwell of the front passenger side.
“That’s good stuff, too. Cabernet sauvignon,” one officer said. They described it as “half empty.”
The officer who accompanied Steele to the hospital turned off his body worn camera. He wrote that he started a 20-minute observation of her at 9:30 p.m. and while reading a warning that her license could be suspended if she refused a breathalyzer or blew a .08 or above, she “repeatedly said ‘Is your penis that small.’ Steele refused all testing after warning was read,” the arrest report said.
Steele has yet to comment on the arrest and did not respond to a request for comment Saturday. Her next court date is set for Dec. 27.
A Democrat who pledged to bring data-driven reforms to the three-member board, Steele was previously an assessment official in Indiana. She was elected to represent most of the county’s north side in 2022, and has since butted heads with her two other colleagues on the board.
Last month, she received a mild sanction from the county’s inspector general for leaking details of a property tax appeal involving the potential future site of the Bears stadium in Arlington Heights. She was also sued by a former employee who alleged he was fired for refusing to release certain information related to that same appeal. That employee, Frank Calabrese, received the same footage of Steele’s arrest and shared it with media outlets on Friday.
The sole Republican on the Cook County Board, Commissioner Sean Morrison, has called on Steele to resign, a request he reiterated Saturday on social media.
“Still no accountability, showing no remorse, offering no apology to the Officers she horribly berated and abused,” he wrote on X. “It provides a glimpse into the arrogance and disrespect for the rule of law and most importantly our Police officers! This contempt is unbecoming any elected official.”
