Yost: Pike sheriff should resign
Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost said Monday that Pike County Sheriff Charles Reader should resign from office.
“He’s been credibly accused and indicted. I don’t see how he can be an effective sheriff, an effective Reader
law enforcement officer,” Yost told WKRC-TV in Cincinnati following a news conference in that city on an unrelated matter.
A Pike County grand jury indicted Reader on Friday on eight felony and eight misdemeanor charges for incidents during his time in office. Among the charges are theft, theft in office, tampering with evidence, tampering with records and conflict of interest.
The charges came after someone filed an anonymous complaint with the state auditor’s office in November accusing Reader of stealing money from drug busts and taking loans from employees to fuel a gambling habit.
Reader, who was first appointed sheriff in May
2015, has declined to comment. He is expected in Pike County Common Pleas Court on Tuesday for his arraignment.
Judge Randy D. Deering recused himself from hearing the case. The Ohio Supreme Court has appointed retired Fairfield County Common Pleas Judge Chris A. Martin to hear the case.
The state has forced the suspension of accused elected officials before, although no one from Yost’s office or from the office of state Auditor Keith Faber would say Monday whether they have begun the
procedure.
The process begins when the prosecutor in the case (in Reader’s case, the state auditor’s office) asks the chief justice of the Ohio Supreme Court to appoint a panel of three retired judges to consider a suspension. The law allows for the suspension with pay of an elected official charged with a felony if it’s determined that the charge relates to the official’s office.
In the past, the suspension process has taken several weeks.
In Ohio, sheriffs’ salaries are based on population. For a county the size of Pike, with a population of about 28,000, the sheriff is paid about $62,000 a year.