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Former Patrol commander indicted by federal grand jury

From staff reports

A former commander of the Marietta Post of the Ohio Highway Patrol was indicted Thursday by a federal grand jury in Columbus.

William P. Elschlager, 48, of 305 Masonic Park Road, Devola, was charged with cyberstalking and deprivation of rights under color of law, according to the indictment in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio.

The highway patrol terminated Elschlager, a lieutenant, in March 2016 on accusations he stalked a woman with whom he had an affair. Local charges of stalking were dismissed in April. Additional charges concerning private information found on his computer of 10 other women illegally obtained through the law enforcement automated database system were dropped last week by the Washington County Prosecutor’s Office.

The grand jury said Elschlager, a 19-year employee of the patrol, between Nov. 23, 2015, and Jan. 17, 2016, with the intent to harass and intimate another person, “used an interactive computer service, an electronic communication service, an electronic communication service of interstate commerce and facilities of interstate and foreign commerce, to engage in a course of conduct that caused, attempted to cause, and would reasonably be expected to cause substantial emotional distress” to the woman.

On Dec. 14, 2015, Elschlager under color of law, unlawfully conducted a traffic stop of the woman after tracking her location by an unauthorized GPS tracking device he placed on her vehicle, the indictment said.

The complaint filed by the FBI against Elschlager on May 17 before a federal magistrate cited incidents between Elschlager and the woman. Their affair lasted from April 2015 to August or September of 2015, the complaint said.

Elschlager in January was interviewed by the Washington County Sheriff’s Office, which told Elschlager his cell phone was part of a search warrant, the complaint said. Elschlager said there would be GPS tracking software on the cell phone and investigators also found a tracking device on the woman’s car, the complaint said.

He faces up to five years in prison and three years of supervised release and a fine of up to $250,000 if convicted of cyberstalking and an additional year in prison upon conviction of deprivation of rights under color of law.

Elschlager also still faces charges related to the alleged theft of evidence–guns– from when he was a patrolman in Delaware County.

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