COLUMBIA, S.C. – Prosecutors say the police chief of a small South Carolina town took legally prescribed narcotics from his officers and their families for his own use.
South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson said former Walhalla Police Chief Ronald Wilbanks also forced someone outside law enforcement to give him pills and threatened him with arrest when he refused.
The indictments Friday against Wilbanks say his shakedown of his employees and the citizen for narcotics and opioids lasted for nearly a decade and when he was in uniform and on duty.
Wilbanks abruptly resigned on Tuesday after 12 years as police chief in Walhalla, an Oconee County town of 4,000 people.
Wilbanks is charged with three counts of misconduct in office. Court records did not name a defense attorney.
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