Former Nelsonville police clerk pleads guilty to database misuse

NELSONVILLE, Ohio — Former Nelsonville Police Clerk Jessica Mount pleaded guilty to unauthorized use of an Ohio law enforcement database last week. 

Mount claimed Nelsonville’s former police chief and former city manager inadequately trained her on the database system. 

“I was given no training on it,” Mount said in a January interview with the Independent. “I was pretty much given access and told to figure it out.”

On March 21, 2023, Mount pleaded guilty to two counts of unauthorized use of the Ohio Law Enforcement Gateway as part of a plea agreement. According to its website, the OHLEG system is “a state-of-the-art electronic information network that allows Ohio law enforcement agencies to share criminal justice data efficiently and securely.”

“This is confidential law enforcement information,” Blackburn said. “People have somewhat of a right to privacy. [OHLEG] contains Social Security numbers, it contains driving history — things that may not be available in the public docket. And therefore, it’s not appropriate to use it for personal use.”

In a text message on March 23, Mount told the Independent she changed her plea to guilty “because essentially I did do something wrong.”

Mount said she used the system improperly last year to look up records from the Bureau of Motor Vehicles to provide information to friends. 

Blackburn said Mount searched the system for more than BMV records, adding that Mount’s searches were “over the purchase and sale of exotic animals.” According to Mount’s indictment, the searches in question occurred on or about May 31, 2022, and June 9, 2022.

The Independent submitted requests for records related to the case to the Athens County Prosecutor’s Office and the Ohio Attorney General’s Office, which were pending at press time.

Mount said that although she made a mistake, “I do 100% feel that all of this comes back to inadequate training. I [had] never used the OHLEG system a day in my life, nor even knew anything about it prior to working at NPD. Had I received proper training, my charges could have been prevented because I would have known better than to look up something for a friend.”

The OHLEG login page notes that users are required to watch an OHLEG security training video “before applying for access.”

Mount claims she never saw the video. Blackburn said it’s unclear “whether she doesn’t remember it or what happened,” and said the prosecutor’s office referred Mount’s claims of inadequate training to OHLEG “for their own internal investigation.” The prosecutor’s office is not considering other charges related to the case, he added.

The Ohio Attorney General’s Office, which oversees OHLEG, did not respond to a request for comment by press time.

Scott Frank, Nelsonville’s former city manager, said he reached out to then-NPD Chief KJ Tracy “when this accusation was initially made” and “was told that there is mandatory online training before access is given.” 

Blackburn said former NPD Chief Scott Fitch, who preceded Tracy, “was the one who referred [allegations about Mount’s OHLEG use] to us,” along with agencies in another Ohio county.

In October 2022, the same month as Mount’s indictment, Fitch resigned from NPD to become Meigs County Sheriff. Fitch was previously fired from the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation, including for falsifying records. According to the OHLEG webpage, as Mount’s supervisor, Fitch was required to approve Mount’s account. 

Fitch did not respond to a request for comment.

Mount said she informed Fitch and Frank that she used OHLEG improperly a month prior to her indictment. She gave the Independent a text message she apparently sent to both Fitch and Frank on Sept. 7, 2022, in which she said she wanted “to come clean” to them both “personally” for using OHLEG “a couple of times after a couple friends asked me to look up their driver status for them.”

Mount added, “It was something I did without thinking” and described the incidents as “obviously a couple dumbass moments.”

Mount was indicted on Oct. 17, 2022. She said she continued working until resigning from her position as clerk on Dec. 20, 2022.

Blackburn said the prosecutor’s office spoke with Frank, Fitch (who resigned in November), Nelsonville City Council President Tony Dunfee and other city officials regarding concerns about Mount’s continued employment by the city following her indictment. (Blackburn and Dunfee are brothers-in-law.)

“It’d be inappropriate for someone to be working in that job with those allegations,” Blackburn said.

Jay Barrett, chief investigator with the prosecutor’s office, said he spoke with Frank directly regarding Mount’s employment.

“I was concerned with her still being active there and working there,” Barrett said. “I talked with Scott briefly in passing about my concerns with her still working there — and not being on administrative leave or something — until the case was taken care of one way or the other.”

Frank said he was unaware of Mount’s October indictment even after his conversation with Barrett, which he said took place in early December. He learned Mount had been indicted two weeks later, he said, when Dunfee “asked me if I knew about her previous court date and I said no. As far as I knew the investigation was still ongoing.”

Frank said, at that time, Dunfee directed him to terminate Mount’s employment. He said he gave her the option to resign after seeking advice from city attorney Bob Toy.

“I immediately attempted to contact her, however she was on vacation and unreachable until she came in on the 20th, at which point she resigned,” Frank said. “Additionally, I looked up her court record the same day Dunfee brought it to my attention and that’s when I found out she was indicted.”

He added, “Keller Blackburn to this day has never shared any information with me about Jessica or her case.”

Frank resigned just 17 days after Mount, while reaching his own agreement with the Athens County Prosecutor’s Office. However, Frank said, “There is absolutely no correlation between Jessica Mount’s case and my later decision to resign.” 

The prosecutor’s office declined to comment on the record about the details of its agreement with Frank.

Interim Nelsonville City Manager Tracy Galway did not respond to a request for related communications and records by press time. Galway also did not respond to a request for comment.

The plea agreement Mount signed is contingent on her completing the Athens County Empowerment community service diversion program. Court records show that she is required to pay $600 to the program.

In January, the city replaced Mount with Breanna Wilderman, then 19 and a communications officer in Campus Safety at Hocking College. 

Additional reporting by Sam Stecklow

NOTE: This story has been updated to reflect additional comments from Scott Frank. Additionally, a previous version of the story said Frank spoke with NPD Chief Scott Fitch regarding concerns about her training; KJ Tracy was chief at the time.