News
Glouster Police Chief May Face Additional Charges
By: Susan Tebben | The Athens Messenger
Posted on:
Glouster’s chief of police, indicted on charges that include allegations that he helped a woman avoid arrest, may face more charges if the case goes back to grand jury. Additionally, the woman in question has now pleaded guilty to drug charges.
Lucas Mace is set for arraignment Wednesday in Athens County Common Pleas Court on three counts of obstructing justice, six counts of dereliction of duty and one count each of theft in office, criminal tools and failure to aid a law enforcement officer. He was indicted by an Athens County grand jury on the charges in May.
Mace allegedly tipped off Hillary Hooper to keep her from being arrested and also allegedly had a relationship with the woman. After Mace was arrested, Hooper was incarcerated at the Southeastern Ohio Regional Jail on an unrelated case out of Perry County.
Athens County Prosecutor Keller Blackburn said he plans to take the case back to a grand jury “within the next month or so” and he expects additional charges to be filed.
Any charges that could be filed would be similar to charges Mace already faces, but would be charges relating to other people being sought on arrest warrants, according to Blackburn.
Blackburn alleged that it wasn’t just Hooper that Mace helped avoid arrest, but that he was helping her friends as well.
Hooper, 23, pleaded guilty to one count of complicity to possession of heroin, which was amended in the agreement from the original charge of possession of heroin.
The prosecution recommended she be sentenced to enter diversion, along with a driver’s license suspension of six months to five years. While not listed in the plea agreement documents, Blackburn said Hooper has agreed to testify in Mace’s case. She has also been cooperating with the investigation and is off drugs.
“She had been using (when Mace allegedly allowed her to stay in his home) and continued to use because she wasn’t arrested when she should have been,” Blackburn said. “If (Mace) had done his job, she would have been clean earlier.”