Former trooper, wife plead guilty to drug charges
Published 10:09 am Tuesday, October 25, 2011
A former Ohio State Highway Patrolman and his wife pleaded guilty to more than 80 counts of prescription drug charges between the two of them Monday in Lawrence County Common Pleas Court.
Thomas Hacker, 31, of 188 County Road 43, Ironton, pleaded guilty to third-degree attempted complicity to obtain a dangerous drug and fourth and fifth degree counts of complicity to deception to obtain a dangerous drug.
Cindy Hacker, 35, of the same address, pleaded guilty to 85 counts, which included more than 70 counts of fourth-degree deception to obtain dangerous drugs, one count of third-degree tampering with evidence, several counts of fifth-degree deception to obtain dangerous drugs and one count of second-degree deception to obtain a dangerous drug, which was, according to the indictment, 4,897 hydrocodone-acetaminophen tablets.
The Hackers were arrested in February after a two-month investigation by the Lawrence County Sheriff’s Office.
According to Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Brigham Anderson, Cindy Hacker obtained vital information from a doctor’s office that would be needed to call in prescriptions and then fraudulently called in those prescriptions to pharmacies in both Lawrence and Scioto counties to get the drugs for personal use.
“There was no evidence she was trafficking,” Anderson said.
Judge Charles Cooper tentatively scheduled sentencing for Jan. 4 and ordered thorough pre-sentencing reports for both cases. He also told the Hackers they would continue to be subjected to random drug tests as a condition of their bond.