Ex-cop gets prison in civil-rights case

ST. LOUIS -- A former St. Louis-area police officer has been ordered to spend four years and three months in federal prison for conspiring with others to arrest a mayoral candidate on false allegations.

Thirty-six-year-old Steven Blakeney was sentenced Thursday in St. Louis. He was convicted in January of one count each of conspiracy against rights, deprivation of rights and falsification of records.

Witnesses testified while he was a Pine Lawn police officer, he ordered someone to falsely report a mayoral candidate stole a campaign poster from a business and arranged for that candidate's arrest.

Last month, a St. Louis jury deadlocked during Blakeney's misdemeanor assault trial related to charges he punched a man outside a St. Louis bar in 2014.

Blakeney was fired from the police force in 2014.