FAIRFAX COUNTY, Va. — Editor's Note: The video above was published on Aug. 5, 2016.
A former mayor of Fairfax City who was charged in a meth-for-sex deal in 2016 is facing even more drug charges years later, according to police.
A spokesperson from the Fairfax County Police Department confirmed Thursday that 56-year-old Richard Scott Silverthorne was arrested on March 31. He has been charged with the distribution of schedule I or II drugs.
This isn't Silverthorne's first run-in with law enforcement. In 2016, the then-mayor of Fairfax City was charged with distributing methamphetamine after police caught him in a sex-for-drugs sting.
Police said Silverthorne handed over meth in exchange for what he thought was going to be a night of group sex with three other men.
Then-Fairfax County Police Captain Jack Hardin said a citizen tipped them off that Mayor Silverthorne was distributing meth through a website used by gay men to arrange casual sexual encounters.
Following his arrest, Silverthorne resigned from his mayoral role and was fired from his job as a substitute teacher in Fairfax County.
Prosecutors wanted Silverthorne to spend at least two years behind bars but a judge sentenced him to three months, which was time already served.
"I lived a double life, a secret life," said Silverthorne after walking out of the jail in 2017. "I was in complete denial that I had a problem."
In the 2017 press conference, Silverthorne said he was not a drug dealer but an addict.
"I was somebody who could go out and like to tie one on, but the reality was nobody knew, nobody," said Silverthorne. "People might have suspected but nobody knew."
He led a secret, double life, nobody knew about. But the former mayor of Fairfax says the meth-for-sex police sting that busted him was a blessing. Scott Silverthorne spoke after his sentencing and release from jail.
