A judge has handed down a five-year prison term to a man accused in the death of a central Ohio child-rape suspect who died after a jail assault. Defendant Zachary Butler also was fined $1,500 on Wednesday and ordered to serve three years' probation after prison. A report by the Champaign County Sheriff's Office says inmate David Piersol was beaten on April 5 at Tri-County Regional Jail in Mechanicsburg and died a few days later. Piersol was in jail after being charged with allegedly raping a young girl. Butler, of Richwood, took responsibility for the assault and apologized to Piersol's family. But he also suggested other inmates continued to attack Piersol in a jail bathroom afterward.
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Zachary Butler was sentenced to five years behind bars and fined $1,500 for assaulting an inmate who died days later
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Butler pleaded guilty last month to one count of reckless homicide and one count of tampering with evidence
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Inmate David Piersol was the victim of an assault April 5 at Tri-County Regional Jail in Mechanicsburg
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The tampering charge involves an accusation that the 24-year-old Butler traded blood-stained pants with another inmate
@placeholder was in the Mechanicsburg jail at the time on charges of resisting arrest and drunken driving.