PIKE COUNTY, Ohio — Former Pike County Sheriff Charles Reader will spend three years in prison for stealing money from drug busts to support his gambling addiction.
Reader was sentenced this morning.
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Reader pleaded guilty to several charges, including theft in office, back in September.
He was suspended as sheriff in 2019 after an investigation was launched.
Reader got emotional before his sentencing and asked the judge not to send him to prison, our news partners at 10TV in Columbus reported.
“I shed a bad light on the office of Sheriff. I have no one to blame but myself,” Reader said in court. “I have no words for the shame that I have.”
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Reader became a well-known name amid the investigation into the 2016 execution-style shootings of eight members of the Rhoden family in Pike County. Eventually, the Wagner family — a couple, their two adult sons — were charged with murder in connection to the homicides.
The charges against Reader were not connected to the killings.
Cox Media Group
