Five Arrested Following MARCS Radio Investigation

CANTON (News Talk 1480 WHBC) – Five local men were arrested this afternoon following a year long investigation by the Stark County Sheriff’s office into stolen radio ID’s.

The ID’s belonged to the statewide MARCS radio system and were being used to illegally program radios to operate on the system designed for first responders.

“Their activity and what they had done could have certainly put safety forces in jeopardy,” said Sheriff George Maier. “They would know when we were moving prisoners, they might know when we were responding to emergencies, they might know when we were going to conduct a raid or a SWAT operation.”

Authorities were notified of suspicious activity by officials with Ohio MARCS, which led investigators to execute numerous search warrants in the Canton Area during October of 2018.

The five suspects, Scott Jones, Donald Smith, Jason Eggleston and Robert Skropits of Canton and Stephen Brown of Uniontown, were allegedly park of an organization who all worked together to sell radios with the system programmed inside of them. All five face a multitude of felony charges.