A badge and a position of trust - Pinellas County Florida Sheriff's office made arrest

Ohio police chief faces 70-count child sex indictment, arrested in Florida

A Clermont County grand jury has indicted Bethel, Ohio, Police Chief Chad Essert on 56 counts of sexual battery and 14 counts of unlawful sexual conduct with a minor, 70 felony charges that carry a combined maximum sentence of 280 years in prison. The Pinellas County Sheriff's Office took the 44-year-old into custody Tuesday night in Seminole, Florida, without incident.

Essert now sits in the Pinellas County Jail awaiting extradition back to Ohio to face the charges. Every count is a third-degree felony. The alleged victim, authorities say, was a student of Essert's.

Fox News Digital reported that the alleged offenses span from 2005 to 2010, a period during which Essert served as an instructor at the "Young Marines" and as a teacher at Scarlet Oaks Career Campus in Sharonville, Ohio. The crimes are alleged to have occurred across multiple locations in both Clermont and Hamilton counties.

But the facts already in the public record tell a damning story about institutional failure. A man left one police job in 2010 under allegations of sexual harassment and witness intimidation. He was later entrusted with a police chief's badge. And now a grand jury says he committed 70 felonies against a child during the years he was supposed to be mentoring and teaching young people.

If the system worked the way it should, this indictment would not have taken this long, and Chad Essert would never have been given a second badge to hide behind.

Read about it... Child Sex crimes are horrendous no matter the politics of the perpetrator.