IAPE Evidence Blog

The Lima News (Ohio)
BYLINE: Bob Blake, The Lima News, Ohio

Put­nam County, OH

For­mer police chief must pay $2K restitution

Mar. 27 – OTTAWA — A for­mer Put­nam County police chief was sen­tenced to spend the next year in jail. The for­mer top cop won’t start serv­ing that sen­tence just yet.

A jury in Jan­u­ary con­victed For­est Gor­don, the for­mer police chief in Kalida and Ottawa, on two counts of theft in office. Vis­it­ing Judge David Webb, of Pauld­ing County, ordered Gor­don to serve a year in jail, pay nearly $2,000 in resti­tu­tion and barred him from ever hold­ing a pub­lic office again.

Gor­don had lit­tle to say.

“I would like to apol­o­gize for this mess,” Gor­don said. “I really don’t know what to say. I’m try­ing to get my life back together.”

Asked if he had any­thing else to add before the judge announced his sen­tence, Gor­don said, “I’ll leave it in your hands.”

Webb ordered Gor­don to report to the Sheriff’s Office on April 12 to begin serv­ing the sen­tence. How­ever, Webb granted an appel­late bond allow­ing Gor­don to remain free while he pur­sues an appeal of his con­vic­tion. Gor­don has been free on an own recog­ni­zance bond through­out the case.

Gordon’s attor­ney, Stephen Cham­ber­lain, argued that Gordon’s lack of a crim­i­nal record and years of ser­vice in the com­mu­nity meant he shouldn’t be sent to jail.

“When I took this case on I was kind of amazed at how far this has gone and how much time, energy was expended on this case — how much time and energy Mr. Gordon’s had to expend defend­ing him­self,” Cham­ber­lain said.

“Obvi­ously, it didn’t come out the way we antic­i­pated it. Frankly, it’s some­thing I didn’t believe was correct.”

The charges against Gor­don, 44, stemmed from the ille­gal sale of firearms from the prop­erty room of the Ottawa Police Depart­ment as well as the theft of equip­ment belong­ing to the Kalida Police Depart­ment that Gor­don kept when he left for the Ottawa job.

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Inter­na­tional Asso­ci­a­tion for Prop­erty and Evi­dence
“Law Enforce­ment Serv­ing the Needs of Law Enforce­ment”
www.IAPE.org