A local environmental activist has been jailed and charged with aggravated menacing following repeated alleged death threats to Athens County Sheriff Pat Kelly.
Chadwick “Chad” Kister, 40, was arrested on Friday at about 6:00 p.m. and placed on $208 bond this morning, Kelly said. The arrest came after a series of alleged threats toward the sheriff via phone calls to the station and a Nelsonville radio show Tuesday, Kelly said.
“It’s been going on for quite some time … (Kister has talked about) me, the government and the FBI, and everybody else putting brain implants in his head,” Kelly said, adding that Kister’s alleged public threat toward an elected official was the last straw.
“It’s been threat after threat,” Kelly said. “We don’t tolerate threats towards anyone, but you cannot threaten an elected official.
“I receive threats constantly as sheriff, but I’m not concerned about me; I’m concerned about deputies … and the general public.”
Kister was diagnosed with schizophrenia at an Athens mental health hospital last year, Kelly added.
Kister is being held in solitary confinement at the Southeastern Ohio Regional Jail, Warden Jeremy Tolson said.
“He is segregated at this time,” Tolson said. “But it has nothing to do with the threats and who he made it to. It is just his history … of mental health issues in conjunction with his history of being (at the SEORJ).”
This is Kister’s fifth trip to the SEORJ, after public intoxication and criminal trespassing charges in 2002, a disorderly conduct charge in 2003, and a disorderly conduct charge in 2005, Tolson added.
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