By Chris Trainor, Javon L. Harris
The State
RICHLAND COUNTY, S.C. — As the Richland County Sheriff’s Department last year mourned the loss of two K9s killed while pursuing thieves, two of the department’s own K9 handlers were stealing from it, Sheriff Leon Lott said Wednesday.
Two K9 specialists ⏤ Kory Mayo and Issac Page ⏤ were arrested and charged with misconduct in office, according to Lott. Both men are facing up to 10 years in jail.
Lott said Mayo and Page were stealing K-9 equipment from the sheriff’s department and selling the items online via social media. The sheriff said the deputies were fired from the department last week and were arrested at 9 a.m. Wednesday.
“I apologize to the community,” Lott said during a Wednesday news conference, adding that Mayo and Page had “tarnished the badge.”
The sheriff said an investigation showed that the thefts and subsequent selling of the stolen items had been going on since February 2024. The deputies brought in less than $10,000, he said.
Lott said that Mayo and Page worked the same shift together at the department. Page had been working for about four years at the sheriff’s department, while Mayo had been there for about three years. A third deputy on the shift is angry about the suspects’ alleged crimes, Lott said.
The stolen equipment includes vaults placed in the back of patrol vehicles to lock up guns, muzzles, leashes and “a lot of different things that go with the K-9 unit,” Lott said.
Lott said the scheme was discovered after an investigator noticed equipment being offered for sale online. That sparked an undercover operation in which an investigator went to a social media platform one of the suspects had created under a false name and arranged to purchase some of the stolen equipment.
The undercover officer was directed to make the purchase at the sheriff’s department’s parking lot. The seller drove a sheriff’s department patrol vehicle.
Are you doing anything that tarnishes the badge? In the video below, Gordon Graham discusses the importance of behaving in a manner that does not discredit your agency or tarnish the badge
“While [the suspects] were supposedly working, they were stealing,” Lott said in Wednesday’s news conference. “They were using some of our own equipment to steal the stuff they were stealing, and then when they were selling it, they were selling it while they were on duty.”
The arrests came about a month after the sheriff’s department lost its second K-9 of 2024. K-9 Bumi was killed Dec. 23 while pursuing suspects of a stolen vehicle after deputies attempted a traffic stop on Parklane Road .
In June, K9 Wick was killed on I-77 while pursing a stolen car suspect. of a stolen car.
Despite the community’s potential for outrage about the arrests, Lott said these were only two bad apples out of of 900, and that the investigator who uncovered the thefts “did the right thing.”
“When the investigator came across it, she didn’t ignore it,” Lott said. “When our investigators started working (the case) they put the full weight on them both,” referring to Mayo and Page, who were booked into the Alvin S . Glenn Detention Center Wednesday.
—
©2025 The State.
Visit thestate.com.
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.