Ron Welch
Muskingum County Prosecutor
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Wednesday, June 3, 2026
Former Muskingum County Adult and Children Protective Services Worker Admits Guilt
(ZANESVILLE, OH)
In February of this year a Muskingum County grand jury indicted Ashley Steele, a former employee of Muskingum County Children Services, for 11 counts of tampering with government records.
All 11 counts stem from her employment with Children Services. One count was for her falsifying court filings to show that she had a prior conviction sealed. The other ten counts relate to her falsifying information in Ohio’s statewide database for information relating to child-abuse cases.
On June 3, 2026, Steele appeared before Judge Gerald Anderson and pled guilty to two counts of Tampering with Records and one count of Attempted Tampering with Records. All counts pled to are felonies.
Details of Steele’s Crimes:
Steele began her employment with Children Services with lies. She advised Children Services she lacked a criminal record. When a background check revealed a criminal record, she said it was expunged: a lie. To support that lie, she forged a court filing about the State not opposing the sealing of her record.
Further investigation revealed a pattern of other lies. Not only was Steele’s record not expunged, it was not even sealed. Actual court records showed that the State of Ohio opposed sealing and that the Guernsey Court of Common Pleas denied sealing.
After discovering Steele’s lies to gain employment, Children Services reviewed her work product throughout employment. And that review reveled a larger pattern of lies. As a children-services case worker, Steele lied repeatedly about meeting clients. She entered those lies as official government records that Ohio’s children-service teams rely on to help families and protect children.
The Outcome:
As part of plea negotiations, the State and the defense have agreed to recommend Steele be sentenced to four years and eleven months in prison. The remaining charges have been dismissed at this time but could be refiled later if Steele violates the terms of her plea agreement.
“The crimes committed by Ashley Steele are disgraceful. She was trusted to obtain information that impacted children and the people caring for those children and she lied in that process,” said Prosecutor Welch. “Fortunately, no child was exposed to unnecessary dangers as a result of her lies. The fact that she impacted families working with children’s services is disgraceful and undermines the public confidence in the work done by Muskingum County Adult and Children Protective Services. These crimes are the result of one person’s criminal behavior; our hope is that the hard work and dedication of the other caseworkers at Muskingum County Adult and Children Protective Services does not suffer.”
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