DALTON, Ga. — A former Tunnel Hill police officer and one-time Officer of the Year pleaded guilty Thursday to 12 charges related to stealing money and guns from criminal investigations more than two years ago.

Scott Reneau, who was arrested in March of 2016 after authorities said more than $37,000 in seized money from criminal investigations went missing, pleaded guilty in Whitfield County Superior Court.

Under the plea agreement with the state, Reneau will spend five years in jail, 10 years on probation and must pay $37,108 in restitution to the city of Tunnel Hill, according to Alan Norton, Lookout Mountain Judicial Circuit assistant district attorney. Norton handled prosecution of the case after Conasauga Judicial Circuit District Attorney Bert Poston recused his office from the case. 

Reneau will officially be sentenced on Oct. 19. Reneau was represented by Smyrna lawyer Gene A. Stokes. Emails sent to Stokes requesting comment were not immediately returned Thursday. 

Reneau, who was a lieutenant with the department before his arrest, pleaded guilty to all 12 counts of his original indictment, and as part of his plea agreement, he will also have to surrender his law enforcement certifications in Georgia and Tennessee.

Reneau was indicted on 12 counts, including six counts of felony theft by taking and six counts of violation of oath by a public officer. Reneau is currently not in custody and has been out on a $10,000 bond since his arrest more than two years ago. He will not be incarcerated until after he has been formally sentenced in October. 

Reneau was named the 2009 Officer of the Year by the Mountain Area Traffic Enforcement Network, which covers all city police, county sheriff’s offices and state patrol posts in northwest Georgia and is a division of the Governor’s Office of Highway Safety.

At the time of Reneau’s arrest, former Tunnel Hill Police Chief Roy Brunson said he found there were two separate incidents where money had gone missing. After the case was turned over to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, the charges were filed. Norton said in addition to the money taken, there were also firearms that were seized that Reneau “converted to his personal use.”

Brunson said in a prepared statement at the time of the arrest that the first instance of missing funds was for $1,618 in cash and the second was for $35,490 that was supposed to be transferred to the Catoosa County Sheriff’s Office. The money came from traffic stop arrests in 2015.

Reneau had worked for Tunnel Hill for 10 years before his arrest. In 2008 while on a traffic stop on Interstate 75, Reneau’s vehicle was hit by a tractor-trailer truck. Video showed him backing away from in-between the two cars just before the collision, which sent him flying over a guard rail and into a tree after being hit by his own squad car. He suffered a concussion, broken right arm and damage to his left ankle and back.