Bainbridge man sentenced in 3 separate Highland County cases
A Bainbridge man facing charges in three separate cases dating back to 2020 was sentenced recently to three and a half years in prison and ordered to pay over $7,000 in restitution.
Kenneth Skaggs III, 42, was indicted in November 2020 on two fifth-degree felony counts, one charge of theft and one of vandalism. He was later indicted in February 2022, and again in January 2025, on one count of failure to comply with the order or signal of a police officer, a third-degree felony.
According to court records, Skaggs pleaded guilty to the theft charge and both failure to comply charges in January, with the vandalism charge dismissed.
For the theft charge, it was alleged that between July 2, 2019 and Sept. 21, 2020, Skaggs “knowingly obtained or exerted control over” electric services valued between $1,000 and $7,500 without the power company’s consent.
The 2022 failure to comply case stemmed from an alleged incident in August 2021 in Highland County and as a continuing course of criminal conduct in Ross County.
According to a bill of particulars, it is alleged that a Greenfield police officer attempted to make a traffic stop on a vehicle operated by Skaggs as he drove through the village of Greenfield. Skaggs allegedly “accelerated rapidly” as he continued driving into Ross County, reaching “speeds of approximately 100 miles per hour.” Skaggs is accused of passing vehicles in no-passing areas, including “at a high rate of speed on blind turns and hills” with a “total disregard for the safety of others on the roadway.
Skaggs pleaded guilty to the 2025 failure to comply charge just two weeks after being indicted. That charge alleged that on or about Nov. 23, 2023, Skaggs “operated a motor vehicle … so as willfully to elude or flee a police officer after receiving a visible or audible signal from a police officer to bring the person’s motor vehicle to a stop, and the operation of the motor vehicle caused a substantial risk of serious physical harm to persons or property.”
Highland County Common Pleas Court Judge Rocky Coss sentenced Skaggs to 24 months in the 2025 failure to comply case and 18 months in the 2022 failure to comply case, plus six months on the theft charge running concurrently. Skaggs had 55 days of jail time credit in the theft case only.
Skaggs was additionally ordered to pay $4,990.53 to the victim of the theft case and $2,134.96 to the alleged victim of the vandalism case.
Skaggs’ driver’s license will be suspended for three years.
Skaggs is incarcerated in the Mansfield Correctional Institution, according to the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction.
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