OCEAN COUNTY – A 16-year Ocean County Sheriff’s Office veteran was sentenced to three years in prison for stealing cocaine that he was entrusted to use to train his law enforcement dogs.

Superior Court Judge Wendel E. Daniels handed down that sentence to former sheriff’s officer John C. Adams, 41, of Toms River, on Friday.

Adams, the department’s former K9 unit commander, had pleaded guilty back in December to stealing the cocaine. He was arrested in March 2017 for that theft. He had personally used more than a kilogram of cocaine that was supposed to be used to train the dogs.

He had originally said the cocaine was accidentally discarded, and then switched stories to blame others in the sheriff’s department for the drug’s disappearance.

Adams, who lost his job with the department, is ineligible for any government jobs in New Jersey.