A recent court filing in the criminal case against the suspended Pike County Sheriff says he violated the conditions of his bail.
The filing by special prosecutor Bob Smith says that Reader contacted a witness who was on the “no contact” list that was provided to Reader and the court. As a condition of his bail, the court said that Reader could not have any contact with a long list of witnesses. The prosecution says, included in that list was Frederic “Chip” Foill, who Reader is accused of texting earlier last month.
On July 15, the prosecution says a series of text messages were exchanged by Reader and Foill. The messages, according to the state says
- READER: “Miss you brother.”
- READER: “Are you not speaking to me”
- FOILL: “I love to brother but I was told by the state I wasn’t aloud (sic) to.”
- READER: “Ok, you weren’t on my “no contact” list… sorry.”
The filing by the state has a series of screenshots that they said were provided to them by Foill. Also in their filing, the state says they made contact with Foill in July before the text messages and told him not to have any contact with Reader, and if Reader contacted him to let the prosecution know.
Reader has a previously scheduled pre-trial set for tomorrow at 10 a.m. where the motion will be discussed.
In July, a grand jury indicted Reader on 16 charges, including borrowing money from employees and county vendors. Reader is accused of borrowing money from Foill — a county vendor — which created conflict of interest, according to the indictment.
In August, the Supreme Court of Ohio officially suspended Reader from office, pending the outcome of his March trial.