On February 1, 1989, an Ohio
television station caught Lukens on camera at a Columbus, Ohio,
McDonald's restaurant talking with the mother of a teenage girl, and openly discussing his sexual relationship with the girl. Soon afterward, a grand jury brought charges against him of contributing to the delinquency of a minor because of allegations that he paid the girl $40 and gifts in exchange for sex when she was 16 years old. Further allegations had been made that the relationship with the girl began when she was 13, but a grand jury declined to pursue further charges against Lukens beyond a single charge of "contributing to the delinquency of a minor". On June 30, 1989, a jury in the
Franklin County Juvenile Court convicted Lukens of the
misdemeanor crimes of contributing to the delinquency of a minor and contributing to the unruliness of a minor for paying $40 to the girl for sex in his Columbus apartment on November 6, 1988. A friend of the girl's, a 19-year-old, accompanied her that day, but was not directly involved. The judge set aside the conviction on the first charge but upheld the second, for which Lukens received the maximum penalty, 180 days in jail and a fine of $1,000. The judge suspended all but 30 days in jail and half the fine, and ordered Lukens to attend
sex offender programs and be tested for venereal diseases. Bond was set at $100,000, which the judge declared "eminently reasonable for a man with no remorse whatsoever." Though Ohio's
age of consent is 16, Lukens' conviction was under a misdemeanor statute that states that "no person shall... aid, abet, induce, cause, encourage, or contribute to a child or ward of the juvenile court (into) becoming an unruly or (delinquent) child." Lukens made an unsuccessful appeal to the Franklin County Court of Appeals. Of particular contention was that the girl had a considerable juvenile delinquency record (which included curfew violations, running away, and petty theft), but this record (as well as a psychiatric report) was ruled inadmissible. She lived with her mother, but was a ward of the Juvenile Court. Lukens' defense was that the juvenile record would show that the girl was already a delinquent and not a reliable witness. The reliability of her testimony was already under attack, as there were significant testimony inconsistencies, a fact conceded by County Prosecutor Michael Miller. Refusing to resign from his seat despite the demands of the Republican leadership, Lukens lost the 1990 Republican primary—the real contest in this heavily Republican district—to state representative
John Boehner, who would later become
Speaker of the United States House of Representatives. On October 23, 1990, the
House Ethics Committee voted to investigate charges that Lukens had fondled and propositioned a Capitol
elevator operator. Realizing his position was untenable, Lukens resigned from Congress on October 24, 1990. In January 1991 he served nine days of the 30-day jail sentence handed down in 1989.
Dan Quayle, who was the incumbent Vice President at the time Lukens' sex scandal was unfolding, was ridiculed in the press for conflating Lukens with astronaut
Buzz Aldrin. During a speech on July 15, 1989, the gaffe-prone Quayle stated, "This next Thursday, July 20th...America celebrates the 20th anniversary of Neil Armstrong and Buz Lukens walking on the moon." ==House banking scandal==