In trading critical social media posts, two important law enforcement figures working the Rhoden family massacre surfaced a concern shared by legal experts: Could a poor result in the auditor's investigation into Pike County sheriff put the prosecution of the Rhoden case in jeopardy?

Sheriff Charles Reader was accused in November of stealing cash seized from drug cases handled by the sheriff's office to fund a gambling problem. An anonymous source made the allegation in a complaint to the Ohio Auditor’s Office.

Reader denied the allegations and is complying with the investigation, according to media accounts.

Pike County Prosecutor Rob Junk requested a special prosecutor be appointed for the investigation of Reader.

In a lengthy, cryptic Sunday night Facebook post, Reader took aim at Junk after Junk sent the sheriff a letter requesting he remove himself and a deputy from any ongoing investigations. The deputy was found to have previously lied about her conduct while working in neighboring Ross County.

"One thing I know for sure, it’s past time to clean the 'Junk' out of Pike County," Reader wrote in a Sunday night post.

Junk then posted his own lengthy, less cryptic response that included the content of the letter he sent to Reader's office.

"​In your personal situation, being under investigation by the Ohio Auditor of State’s Special Investigations Unit, this office is requesting that you refrain from taking part in any criminal investigation in which you may be a potential witness unless and/or until you have been cleared of any wrongdoing," Junk wrote.

Reader has removed his posts and issued this statement:

"Facebook is not a place for adults to air grievances. This is nothing more than a political witch hunt, where the prosecutor is attempting to do everything in his power to 'sink my boat,' just as he said, himself. I deleted my postings to respect the citizens of Pike County and the elected officials. I invite prosecutor Junk to the table to meet and discuss his concerns so a clear mutual path forward can be created for the best interest of the citizens of Pike County."

Criminal justice experts agree that should Reader be found of wrongdoing, the case could pose a serious obstacle to the prosecution of the four members of the Wagner clan who are charged in the Rhoden family massacre.

George “Billy” Wagner, 47; his wife, Angela Wagner, 48; and their two children, George Wagner IV, 27, and Edward “Jake” Wagner, 26, were arrested and charged last fall.

They stand accused of killing eight members of the Rhoden family. Officials have said they were motivated by custody of the child of Jake Wagner and one of the victims, 19-year-old Hanna Rhoden.

More:Pike County: Wagner family arrested in the Rhoden family massacre

If defense attorneys make a strong case that Reader's credibility is tainted by his potential conviction, "that could give jurors reason to pause and give reasonable doubt," said David Singleton, a law professor at Northern Kentucky University and the executive director of the Ohio Justice & Policy Center. "It's possible it could make a difference."

Singleton and other experts stressed that Reader's role in investigating the killings will influence how and whether his own criminal case comes up at the Wagners' trials.

They also stressed that many questions must be answered before the influence, if any, that Reader's alleged wrongdoing has on the Wagner prosecution becomes clear.

A defense attorney, Singleton said, could argue that Reader botched the investigation by rushing through it in order to "shift suspicion away from himself." The Rhoden killings were high-profile and garnered the attention of top law enforcement officials in the state as well as extensive media coverage.

If Reader was a key investigator on the case, which was handled by his sheriff's office and the state's Bureau of Criminal Investigation, it's likely a judge would allow Reader's criminal troubles to be aired at trial before jurors, Singleton said.

He likened such a scenario to the O.J. Simpson trial. Then, Det. Mark Fuhrman, who found crucial evidence in the case, was branded by the defense as a racist. Tapes were played of him using the N-word after he denied he’d said it.

"He was a critical fact witness. Discredit him, the house of cards falls," Singleton said. "If the sheriff (Reader) is a critical fact witness in terms of investigatory steps, and (a defense attorney) attacks his credibility, the house could fall."

Even if Reader didn't play a significant role in the investigation, his criminal case could still come up in the Wagner cases, said Jean Peters Baker, the top prosecutor of Jackson County in Missouri, a jurisdiction that includes Kansas City.

But in that event, the prosecution may cut Reader's investigative contribution entirely from the case against the Wagners, Peters Baker said.

That would likely bolster the prosecution's argument to the judge that Reader's criminal history isn't relevant to the Wagner trials and thus shouldn't be heard by a jury, she added.

Mike Allen, a former top prosecutor of Hamilton County, said a similar outcome occurred in the trial of a Warren County man accused of killing his wife. A detective who worked the Ryan Widmer case had previously lied about his employment history, according to the Dayton Daily News.

So the prosecution worked around the detective, not calling him as a witness and thus preventing the defense from bringing up his past dishonesty, Allen said.

But if Reader's history does come up at trial, it won't necessarily be a death blow to the state's case against the Wagners.

"Officers are human beings like everybody else," Peters Baker said. "Sometimes juries can weigh it out and decide what kind of credence they want to give."

Allen suspects that Reader played more than an ancillary role in the Wagner investigation, considering the relatively small size of the Pike County Sheriff's Office.

"If they call him and he's impeached by the defense," Allen said, "they're stuck with him. They're just stuck with whatever he has to say."