A former Newport Police Department detective captain pleaded guilty Monday to two counts of official misconduct for his involvement in a stolen merchandise sting operation run by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, reports the News Sentinel.
Roger Lynn Shults will serve 30 days in jail, followed by a two-year sentence on probation, according to Fourth Judicial District Attorney General James B. Dunn.
He will be dercertified as a law enforcement officer and can never work in law enforcement again, according to Dunn.
Shults, the brother of Newport Police Chief Maurice Shults, was charged in a scheme to buy items he thought were stolen but were part of a TBI sting.
The stolen items included cartons of cigarettes, candy bars, beef jerky and Harley-Davidson gear.
Also caught up in the operation was Newport Police Capt. James Holt, 59, who was fired last year after pleading guilty to federal gun and drug charges.
Holt would pay a percentage of the value of the goods to an informant and sometimes paid in pills he regularly stole from evidence bags at the police department. He is serving a 90-month federal prison term in the case.