{"id":305630,"date":"2026-06-12T20:46:13","date_gmt":"2026-06-12T20:46:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/305630\/"},"modified":"2026-06-12T20:46:13","modified_gmt":"2026-06-12T20:46:13","slug":"ohio-police-chief-arrested-in-florida-faces-dozens-of-sexual-battery-charges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/305630\/","title":{"rendered":"Ohio police chief arrested in Florida, faces dozens of sexual battery charges"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chad Essert is charged with 56 counts of sexual battery and 14 counts of sexual conduct with a minor.<\/p>\n

PINELLAS COUNTY, Fla. \u2014 An Ohio police chief faces dozens of felony sexual battery charges after being arrested in Pinellas County Thursday night.<\/p>\n

Chad Essert, 44, is the police chief in Bethel, Ohio, located about 30 miles east of Cincinnati.<\/p>\n

The sheriff’s office in Clermont County, Ohio announced Essert’s indictment Thursday. He faces a total of 70 felony charges, including 56 counts of sexual battery and 14 counts of unlawful sexual conduct with a minor.<\/p>\n


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If convicted, Essert could be sentenced to up to 280 years in prison.<\/p>\n

According to Clermont County deputies, the offenses occurred between 2005 and 2010 while Essert was an instructor for the Young Marines program and a teacher at a local college. The victim was one of Essert’s students.<\/p>\n

Essert was taken into custody by the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office on Thursday evening in Seminole. He remains in custody at the Pinellas County Jail, awaiting extradition to Clermont County.<\/p>\n

It’s unclear why Essert was in Florida at the time of his arrest.<\/p>\n

Clermont County authorities are urging anyone who believes they may have been a victim of Essert to contact law enforcement at 513-732-7313.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chad Essert is charged with 56 counts of sexual battery and 14 counts of sexual conduct with a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":305631,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":["post-305630","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305630","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=305630"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305630\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/305631"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=305630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=305630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=305630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}