Gary Mohr Departing as Director of Ohio Prisons

COLUMBUS, Ohio — According to a report in the Columbus Dispatch, Gary Mohr is departing as head of the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction.

The 65-year-old Mohr told the Dispatch he plans to work as a consultant for the North Carolina prison system, where five correction officers have been killed over the past year.

According to the report, he previously served as director of Gov. George V. Voinovich’s Office of Criminal Justice from 1992 to ’94, overseeing an investigation into the deadly Lucasville prison riot and suggesting reforms. He later became a deputy prisons director for administration and formerly was warden of Ross Correctional Institution, Chillicothe Correctional Institution and the Correction Reception Center. Mohr and his wife reside in Chillicothe.

Stuart Hudson, the prison agency’s managing director of health care and fiscal operations, will step in as interim director starting Friday, Aug. 31. Gov. John Kasich’s office announced Tuesday. The agency has a nearly $1.8 billion annual budget and more than 12,000 employees, and operates 27 prisons holding 49,534 inmates at an average daily cost of $72.23 each, according to the report in the Dispatch.

Hudson, 46, the interim director, originally came aboard the agency as a parole officer in 1994, and has held his current position for five years; he also previously supervised prisoner healthcare services. Hudson is additionally a former warden of both Mansfield Correctional Institution and Pickaway Correctional Institution.