A drug swap that may have cost a 19-year-old Ohio man his life definitely cost his dad prison time.

Robert Gent Jr., 45, of Decatur, faces charges of reckless homicide and involuntary manslaughter in Van Wert, Ohio, in the death of his son Zachary. Gent, however, had his probation for a 2002 battery conviction in Allen Superior Court revoked Friday by a judge who allowed text messages between the two Gents to be read in court after lengthy arguments between lawyers.

The text messages detail the set-up to what investigators believe was a trade between the Gents – 30 of Zachary Gent’s Vicodin pills he received from a hospital after a fight for 20 of Robert Gent Jr.’s methadone pills – hours before the younger Gent overdosed on at least 14 methadone pills and died Jan. 27 in his Van Wert apartment.

Judge John F. Surbeck sentenced Robert Gent Jr. to eight years in prison, the amount of time that was suspended from his sentence in 2002 after he pleaded guilty to pushing his girlfriend out of a moving truck as they were driving home after drinking at an American Legion hall. He had received one year in prison that he served most of in Allen County Jail as his case wound through the legal system.

A trial in Van Wert that may result in more prison time for Gent in connection to his son’s death is pending.

Gent’s lawyer, Daniel Pappas, exhausted every objection possible to keep the text messages – which contained slang for the drugs, amounts of money, and at least one drop-off point – from being entered as evidence and even succeeded in convincing Surbeck to disallow a Van Wert Police Department report that had only a few of the text messages – acquired through a search warrant – copied into it.

This caused a 15-minute recess in the two-hour hearing as prosecutors had the actual records of the text messages faxed to the courthouse, unabridged.

Pappas then objected to the authenticity of the records, noting there wasn’t an affidavit proving the records came from the phone company and also questioned how anyone could be certain someone else wasn’t using Gent’s cell phone to send messages to his son. Surbeck had enough at that point, though, and allowed the text messages, citing testimony from a Van Wert Police detective who spoke to Gent in his son’s apartment while the body lay 10 feet from them with Gent holding his cell phone.

Pappas also tried to poke holes in the prosecution’s star witness.

Krystal Schumm testified that she drove Zachary Gent from Van Wert to Decatur on Jan. 26 and stopped at his father’s home. She waited in her car while Gent went up to the door, which she said was opened by his father. She testified that the younger Gent said he got drugs from his father, though at the time she didn’t know what they were doing in Van Wert.

Zachary Gent took the methadone later that night and died early the next morning. He may have had other drugs in his system, as well. Schumm said while on the phone with the elder Gent as his son was dying, he said for her not to tell the police where his son got the drugs.

Pappas questioned Schumm on whether she was drunk or impaired the day she drove Zachary Gent to Decatur, as a text message early that morning implied. She said she was being sarcastic. One of Pappas’ witnesses, Casey Truett, said Schumm told her she was drunk in the car after the drive to Decatur, went to sleep, never saw Robert Gent Jr. at the door and never saw any methadone pills.

Pappas also pointed out that Schumm parked far from Gent’s front door and at a right angle, making it nearly impossible for her to see anybody at the front door. Gent’s wife, Katherine Gent, also testified that Zachary Gent had stolen drugs from Robert Gent Jr. in the past. Pappas also suggested that Zachary Gent had other drugs on him, as well as the methadone, before meeting his father.