Former Pike County Sheriff Charles Reader will spend the next three years behind bars.
Reader, 47, was sentenced to six years in prison on Wednesday for the felony charges including theft in office and tampering with evidence. He pleaded guilty to the charges, last year. The sentences will run concurrently which means Reader will serve a total of three years.
With a felony conviction, Reader can never again serve as a law enforcement officer or hold public office in Ohio.
The felony charges against the former Sheriff relate to evidence bags containing seized currency that were in Reader’s possession.
Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost issued a statement regarding the sentencing, saying "no one is above the law , and there are rightful consequences for violating the public trust." He said "today’s sentencing closes an ugly chapter for Pike County, whose citizens deserve government free of corruption.”
Reader was thrust into the spotlight during the investigation of the Pike County Rhoden murder investigation. Reader was appointed sheriff less than a year before seven adults and a teenage boy, all in the Rhoden family, were fatally shot in April 2016.