A former Mount Vernon Police Department detective pleaded guilty Friday to a federal extortion charge, admitting he used his position to steal money and narcotics from the department's property room. Matthew L. Dailey could receive a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.

A former Mount Vernon Police Department detective pleaded guilty Friday to a federal extortion charge, admitting he used his position to steal money and narcotics from the department's property room.

Matthew L. Dailey could receive a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. U.S. District Court Judge Algenon L. Marbley did not set a sentencing date for Dailey, who is being held without bail in the Franklin County jail.

Dailey, 45, of Howard, a sergeant who was evidence custodian of the property room, has resigned from the police department where he worked for 10 years.

He pleaded guilty to extortion in a bill of information negotiated by his attorney, Sam Shamansky, and the U.S. attorney's office. The agreement requires him to pay $8,000 in restitution to the Mount Vernon Police Department and to never work in law enforcement again.

Besides stealing money and drugs from the property room of the Knox County police department, Dailey admitted using a police informant to sell narcotics.

"He has been addicted to narcotic painkillers for many, many years following an on-duty injury," Shamansky said afterward. "He began stealing not for financial gain but strictly to provide Percocets, to which he was horribly addicted."

The statement of facts that Assistant U.S. Attorney Jessica Kim and FBI Special Agent Tisha Hartsough presented in court Friday laid out how Dailey operated.

Dailey took marijuana, methamphetamine, bath salts and ecstacy pills from the property room, gave the drugs to an informant to sell and then split the profits with him.

Dailey also was observed by agents from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation in Columbus buying varying amounts of oxycodone pills five days a week over seven months from a second informant.

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