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NEW CUMBERLAND -- A former Hancock County sheriff’s deputy who was sentenced to prison in February for possession of child pornography could be released as early as Aug. 5.
That’s when a parole hearing has been scheduled for Patrick J. Hoder.
Circuit Judge David Sims on Feb. 5 had sentenced the 57-year-old Hoder to two years in prison after the former K-9 handler had agreed to plead guilty to one count of possessing material visually portraying minors engaged in sexually explicit content.
The plea deal, which had been reached Nov. 7, stipulated that Hoder would be sentenced under less stringent statutes that had been in effect when he was arrested in August 2024.
When Hoder, who is currently being held in the St. Mary’s Correctional Center, is released, he will face 10 years of supervised release and will have to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life. A request by his defense attorney at time, W. Braden Noon, that Hoder be held on house arrest, had been denied.
Hoder had been taken into custody with authorities reporting at the time that they had found hundreds of pornographic images and videos of children on one of his electronic devices. Under terms of the plea arrangement, he admitted to having 50 or fewer images of child pornography in his possession.
If he had been convicted on the original charges, Hoder, who also had been involved in numerous community programs, could have been sentenced to as many as 15 years in prison and faced a fine of $25,000.
The original charges had indicted Hoder had allegedly possessed more than 600 images. Carlton Smith, an investigator with the West Virginia State Police, testified during a September pre-trail hearing that a forensic examination of Hoder’s cellphone by an investigator in Ashland, Ky., showed 313 of more than 500 images that had been flagged were probably child pornography, with the remaining images flagged as “age questionable.”
According to the West Virginia Parole Board, his projected release date will be Feb. 5 of next year if he is not released in August.