PICKAWAY – Former sheriff Charlie Reader is being houses in Orient prisons.
After sentencing Reader was transported from Pike County Court of Common Pleas to the intake department in Orient. The intake department houses around 1,500 inmates and it is the location where inmates are processed.
Reader was charged with three years in prison after pleading guilty to crimes of theft in office, tampering with evidence, and conflict of interest.
Reader admitted to take money confiscated from drug dealers and said that he used it for charity, but prosecutors pointed towards debts from gambling, and the sale of a sheriff vehicle that Reader purchased and solve more more money months later.
The investigation started in 2018 when an anonymous tip came into the state department.
The investigation suspended Reader in July of 2019.
Reader claimed that his gambling addition hit a all time high when he received national spotlight for the Rhoden murders in 2016. When eight members of a family were shot execution-style in Pike county.
Judge Patricia Cosgrove over the case said that this was no excuse, that law enforcement, including sheriffs, have free services to help deal with the trauma they deal with on a sometimes daily basis. She said when you take these jobs you are accepting of those situations.
Reader was sentenced to two years for both counts of theft in office, one year for both counts of tampering with evidence, those charges will run together adding up to only 3 years in prison. He will also have three years of community control after parole.
Expected Release Date/Parole Eligibility Date for Reader is
03/22/2024
