PASCAGOULA, Mississippi -- A former Jackson County deputy has been charged with embezzlement after investigators say he stole multiple items from the Jackson County Sheriff's Department while employed there and sold them to a local pawn shop.

According to Jackson County Sheriff Mike Ezell, Alexander Herman Kieper Jr. 55, of St. Martin, was employed with the JCSO for 18 years before resigning in September 2011.

The JCSO was initially contacted by Dad's Super Pawn in Gulfport in June 2015 in reference to equipment that had been pawned. The pawn shop considered the items suspicious and, after checking records, determined they had been purchased by the JCSO in 2009.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was contacted to assist in the investigation, which found that Kieper had sold two spotting scopes, two lenses for the scopes and two tripods on June 10, 2015. The items have a total value of $10,000 and were purchased by the JCSO through a Homeland Security Grant awarded to the department in 2006.

All of the items were assigned to Keiper when he was a deputy and were never placed back in inventory.

Kieper was taken into custody and transported to the Jackson County Adult Detention Center. If convicted, he faces up to 10 years in state prison and a $25,000 fine.