Former Mount Vernon Police Officer Pleads Guilty to Extortion

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Matthew L. Dailey, age 45, of Howard, Ohio, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court to Hobbs Act extortion under color of official right.

Carter M. Stewart, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio, Angela L. Byers, Special Agent in Charge, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Cincinnati Field Division, David A. Grant, Acting Special Agent in Charge, Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine and Mount Vernon Police Chief Roger A. Monroe, announced the plea entered into today before U.S. District Judge Algenon L. Marbley.

According to court documents, Dailey was employed as a Detective Sergeant with the Mount Vernon Police Department, who investigated general crimes, including narcotics crimes. In September of last year, Dailey asked an individual, who had served as an informant for Dailey for approximately seven years, to sell drugs for him.

Dailey provided the individual with marijuana, methamphetamine, bath salts, and ecstasy pills to sell and split the profits. A portion of the drugs were supplied from the Police Department’s property room, of which Dailey was the Evidence Custodian.

Investigators also observed Dailey meeting with a second individual, who sold Oxycodone pills to Dailey approximately five days a week for seven months.

Dailey was placed on administrative leave in September 2015. During an inventory of the property room thereafter, the Police Department discovered a kit used to teach drug awareness was missing crack and powder cocaine and ecstasy pills.

Dailey pleaded guilty on December 21, 2015. He also agreed to pay restitution to the Mount Vernon Police Department, forfeit weapons, and a ban on future employment in any law enforcement capacity.

Hobbs Act extortion under color of official right is a crime punishable by up to 20 years in prison.

U.S. Attorney Stewart commended the cooperative investigation by the FBI, DEA, Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation (BCI), and Mount Vernon Police Department, as well as Assistant United States Attorneys Jessica H. Kim and Douglas W. Squires, who are representing the United States in this case.