Pike County Ohio sheriff indicted on 16 charges
CINCINNATI, Ohio June 29 2019– The Pike County sheriff who investigated the 2016 Rhoden murders was indicted Friday on more than a dozen charges stemming from allegations that he stole cash seized from cases handled by his office.
Charles Reader faces eight felonies and eight misdemeanors.
Reader was accused in November of stealing cash seized from drug cases handled by the sheriff’s office to fund a gambling problem. An anonymous source made the allegation in a complaint that was forwarded to the Ohio Auditor’s Office.
Pike County Prosecutor Rob Junk requested a special prosecutor in Reader’s case, which was investigated by the Ohio Auditor of State’s Special Investigations Unit, Junk said last month amid a dispute with Reader on Facebook.
Reader lamented then past cuts to his staff and budget cuts to the sheriff’s office.
He later removed the posts and issued a follow-up statement that read, in part:
“This is nothing more than a political witch hunt, where the prosecutor is attempting to do everything in his power to ‘sink my boat,’ ” Reader wrote.
His attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday afternoon.
A Pike County grand jury returned the 16-count indictment Friday morning. The indictment further details the allegations facing Reader, which include:
Two counts of tampering with evidence, a third-degree felony
Four counts of theft in office, three are fourth-degree felonies and one is a fifth-degree felony
Seven counts of conflict of interest, a first-degree misdemeanor
One count of securing writing by deception, a fifth-degree felony
Two counts of theft — one is a fifth-degree felony and the other is a first-degree felony
Reader’s criminal case could have a deleterious effect on the prosecution of four members of the Wagner family charged in the Rhoden family massacre, according to legal experts.
“It all comes down to how much he did in that investigation,” said Mike Allen, a former top prosecutor of Hamilton County, Ohio. Allen earlier said he suspected Reader played more than an ancillary role, considering the relatively small size of the Pike County Sheriff’s Office.
George “Billy” Wagner, 47; his wife, Angela Wagner, 48; and their two children, George Wagner IV, 27, and Edward “Jake” Wagner, 26, were arrested and charged last fall. The charges were the result of the largest homicide investigation in Ohio history.
The Wagners are accused of killing eight members of the Rhoden family. Officials have said they were motivated by custody of the child of Jake Wagner and one of the victims, 19-year-old Hanna Rhoden.
