CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Changes have been to Kanawha County’s home confinement program after a former officer was arrested for accepting a bribe from a man under his supervision.
Kanawha County Sheriff Mike Rutherford said officers will rotate home visits every three months.
“All the officers rotate to different areas that way they don’t get to know the individuals as well because some of these people are on the program for a few days and some of them are on it for literally years,” Rutherford said.
Jacques Vance was a former Kanawha County home confinement officer who supervised Robert Henry Hebert Jr. Between October 2015 and April 2017, Vance accepted $4,000 from Herbert. In exchange, Vance did not report Herbert had violated his home confinement.
Vance was sentenced Tuesday to 1-10 years in prison after he previously pleaded guilty to felony bribery.
During Tuesday’s court hearing, Vance apologized to Sheriff Rutherford and the court for what he did. Rutherford said he was pleased with the sentencing outcome, but called the situation a huge disappointment.
“We’re very upset about what happened and we’ll never tolerate it,” Rutherford told MetroNews.
Rutherford said the incident put “a black cloud on the department.” They’re hoping to improve accountability by lessening the home confinement supervisor’s caseload. The caseload has been redistributed among six officers to allow the supervisor to spend a few days at each home to re-familiarize himself with those in the program.
“That way we can kind of keep an eye on everybody and there would be more than one set of eyes on any given person to any time on the program,” Rutherford said.