Judge finds tax review commissioner not guilty of DUI

THE LOOP (WBBM Newsradio) -- An elected leader in Cook County is off the hook, now that a judge has acquitted her in a high-profile DUI case.

Cook County Board of Review Commissioner Samantha Steele was found not guilty in a bench trial lasting less than a day and a half, stemming from her arrest following a crash in November 2024 on Ashland Avenue near Ainslie on Chicago's North side.

Bodycam video from Chicago police shows officers interacting with Steele after witnesses said the car she was driving smashed into two parked cars. During the interactions, Steele repeatedly refused to provide her license or other identifying information, insisting that she was waiting for her attorney to arrive on the scene.

At several points in the video, she can be heard saying "I'm an elected official."

Prosecutors say Steele was slurring, smelled of alcohol and was "extraordinarily disrespectful" to law enforcement. She also refused field sobriety tests and a blood draw.

The judge in the case ruled that prosecutors established a suspicion that she was impaired but did not prove it definitively, and found her not guilty.

It's the latest controversy for Steele since she was first elected in 2022, following a wrongful termination lawsuit and a finding that she violated ethics rules for disclosing information about the Bears' property in Arlington Heights.

She lost her re-election bid in the Democratic primary back in March.