Report: Convicted ex-sheriff got pills from multiple doctors
FREMONT, Ohio (AP) — Investigative reports say a former Ohio sheriff who admitted stealing prescription drugs had been abusing prescription Vicodin he got from multiple doctors for more than four years.
Former Sandusky County Sheriff Kyle Overmyer was sentenced to four years in prison in December after pleading guilty to drug charges and misusing office funds.
Records released this past week by the Ohio Attorney General’s Office say Overmyer stole pill boxes containing discarded medications from law enforcement agencies in northwest Ohio.
The reports also say the former two-term sheriff told an investigator that he picked the drug disposal boxes to improve relations with area police departments.
Overmyer’s attorney said Friday that he worked out the allegations in court and is focused on turning this chapter of his life into a happy ending.
Cincinnati ocelot makes 10th appearance at annual festival
CINCINNATI (AP) — The Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden has taken its cat ambassador for her tenth consecutive appearance at the National Ocelot Festival.
WCPO-TV reports that the 17-year-old ocelot Sihil traveled 1,200 miles to the Gladys Porter Zoo in Brownsville, Texas, to participate in the event Saturday.
Held on National Ocelot Conservation Day, the festival features information and education sessions on conservation of the endangered ocelot, as well as onstage appearances by Cincinnati’s famous feline.
Sihil made history as the first ocelot born using transferred frozen embryos.
Decision on fate of Cincinnati’s King Records gets delayed
CINCINNATI (AP) — The former home of Cincinnati’s legendary King Records received a stay of execution after a hearing on whether the building’s owner can demolish the structure was continued for six months.
The city’s Historic Conservation Board was scheduled to hear the case on Monday, but both sides agreed to delay the hearing until Aug. 27 in hopes that a deal can be struck to save the building.
Dynamic Industries believes that demolishing the studio would make the 12-acre site that it sits on more valuable for a potential sale.
The city has offered $220,000 to purchase the building with hopes of restoring the recording studio and constructing a small museum similar to Memphis’ Sun Records.
King Records was the nation’s sixth-largest record company at its peak during the 1940s and 1950s.
Ohio bill would allow cheaper alternatives to costly EpiPen
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — An Ohio bill would allow pharmacists to offer a generic and cheaper alternative to lifesaving EpiPens.
The Blade reports the bill introduced last week by state Rep. Derek Merrin would allow substitution only with the patient’s permission. Doctors still can insist on the brand-name EpiPen.
Merrin, a Republican, says he sees the bill as a national model, “free-market solution” to the Mylan pricing issue.
Mylan Pharmaceuticals came under fire last year for gradually raising the retail price more than 400 percent to $600 for a two-pen pack.
State Sen. David Burke, a Republican and the only pharmacist in the General Assembly, says he knows of no instance where substitution of the drug, delivered through a different spring mechanism than used in the Mylan product, has caused harm.
Ohio prison officer gets year in prison for carrying drugs
LEBANON, Ohio (AP) — A former Ohio corrections officer has been sentenced to a year in prison after pleading guilty to illegally carrying drugs intended for an inmate.
Warren County’s prosecutor says 23-year-old Walter Richardson was convicted Friday of conveying drugs into a detention facility, a 3rd degree felony, and drug possession, a 4th degree felony.
Ohio law mandates he serve prison time because he was an Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction employee.
When he reported to work at the Lebanon Correctional Institution in August 2016, Richardson was discovered with 100 Suboxone strips in the finger of a rubber glove.
An investigation by the prisons department and Ohio State Highway Patrol determined an inmate, whom Richardson declined to name, paid Richardson $1,000 to deliver the package of drugs. He resigned and was arrested.
