A former Baton Rouge policeman convicted of soliciting sex from a Southern University student was supposed to begin his six-month stint in the East Baton Rouge Parish Prison on Friday.

But Donald Steele Jr.’s pre-arranged date with a jail cell was postponed after his attorneys asked a judge to set a bail for him while they appeal his conviction and sentence.

During a hearing Friday morning inside the 19th Judicial District Courthouse, Chief Judge Donald Johnson granted Steele an $18,000 post-conviction bond – resetting bail in the same amount it was before the courts found the officer guilty and sentenced him to serve time.

Johnson gave Steele a year in the parish prison during his Oct. 16 sentencing hearing. He suspended half of the term, placed Steele on a year of probation after hi

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