A former Dresden police officer was sentenced to four years in prison and must surrender his police certification for the crimes he committed while wearing his badge.

Ron Welch
Muskingum County Prosecutor

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Thursday, November 3, 2022

Former Dresden officer sentenced to prison for crimes committed behind badge

A former Dresden police officer was sentenced to four years in prison and must surrender his police certification for the crimes he committed while wearing his badge.

Christopher Cheney, 31, of Coshocton, pleaded guilty last week to one third-degree felony count of theft in office, one third-degree felony count of tampering with evidence and one fourth-degree felony count of possession of drugs, Buprenorphine.

Cheney’s criminal behavior came to light in May of 2022 when Chief Scott Caldwell of the Dresden Police Department received complaints from citizens concerning Cheney.

Chief Caldwell and the Muskingum County Sheriff’s Office then began a months-long investigation in conjunction with the Central Ohio Drug Enforcement Task Force.

They discovered Cheney had a long-standing addiction to the prescription narcotic buprenorphine, more commonly known as Suboxone.

Detectives learned though their investigation that Cheney committed acts which violated his oath of office, his obligation to the citizens of Dresden and the laws of the State of Ohio.

One incident involved Cheney taking a Dresden citizen to Walmart so that citizen could retrieve their prescription for Suboxone while Cheney stood by with his badge on his hip. In the parking lot, Cheney took half of the prescription from that citizen.

As detectives investigated Cheney, they installed an electronic tracking device on his assigned police cruiser. In June, it became apparent that Cheney was not working as he indicated on his time sheets, leaving the Village of Dresden without proper law enforcement patrol.

After comparing Cheney’s hour log to activity log produced by the tracking device on the cruiser, investigators determined that Cheney stole more than $2,700 from village taxpayers in unworked hours.

The case was extremely upsetting to the case investigators, causing Muskingum County Sheriff’s Office Det. Matt Wilhite to inform the court at sentencing that the “fear that Mr. Cheney had instilled … throughout the time that he was employed by the Village of Dresden as a police officer will remain with the citizens of the Village of Dresden and Muskingum County for years. At a time when the trust of law enforcement by the citizens is at an all-time low it will take many years for [those persons Cheney dealt with] to trust in any kind of law enforcement.”

Muskingum County Prosecutor Ron Welch recognizes that while virtually all law enforcement officers do their jobs honorably and professionally, there are a few who choose to abuse the trust placed in them by citizens.

“The prosecution of cases like this is important to my office, the citizens of Muskingum County and to law enforcement,” Prosecutor Welch said. “This defendant used his badge as a license to abuse his power, and now he has not only lost that badge, but he lost his freedom as well.”



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Former Dresden officer sentenced to prison for crimes committed behind badge