News
Former OU Professor Convicted Of Evidence Tampering, Won’t Serve Prison Time
By: Susan Tebben
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ATHENS (WOUB) — In a case that began as a child pornography investigation five years ago, a former Ohio University professor was convicted Friday and sentenced to community control.
Amol T. Kharabe, 47, of Dublin, was convicted on charges of tampering with evidence, receiving stolen property and unauthorized use of property, all felony counts.
Athens County Common Pleas Judge George McCarthy sentenced Kharabe to five years of community control after hearing arguments from the prosecutor and the defense on proper sentencing. The prosecution asked for four years in prison, while Kharabe’s attorney argued for community control. Kharabe is also required to complete a program at a treatment center in Columbus.
Kharabe was originally indicted in 2014 on nine counts of pandering obscenity involving a minor, one count of pandering obscenity, one count of illegal use of a minor in a nudity-oriented material or performance and one count of possessing criminal tools. In the years since, several other sexually-oriented charges were added to Kharabe’s original list of charges, but the prosecution decided not to pursue those charges.
“The State agreed to non-sex offenses due to the files only being partially downloaded and Kharabe needing to travel internationally for his sick minor child, but it felt his actions still warranted a prison sentence,” Athens County Prosecutor Keller Blackburn said in a news release.
Kharabe was terminated from his position as a business professor at OU in May 2015. He was out on bond throughout the case.