SUNBURY, Pa. — The convicted felon charged in the suspected drug overdose of a 9-year-old boy was accused in nine separate cases between 1974 and 1985, with several of the crimes involving children, according to court records in Northumberland County.

Victor “Butch” Hare, 58, of Point Township, faces charges of endangering the welfare of children and felony possession of firearms. The man’s claims that Korbin Rager, an Oaklyin Elementary School student, was addicted to drugs has outraged the boy’s friends and family members. Hare, they say, is lying to cover up whatever really happened.

Court records in Northumberland County, about 50 miles north of Harrisburg, indicate that Hare was 18 when he was accused in August 1974 of lying in bed with a boy, exposing his genitals and discussing deviate sexual acts with him.

The records also reveal that in September 1978, Hare was arrested in a string of burglaries in Northumberland in which he and two juveniles took fishing equipment, a camera flash, alcohol, cigarettes and more than $400 in cash from individuals and a sub shop.

Hare pleaded guilty to four felony counts of burglary, theft and conspiracy and two misdemeanor counts of corruption of minors and receiving stolen property. He received prison sentences totaling at least 10 years on those charges and, while serving them, escaped from a work detail at the State Correctional Institution near Harrisburg. He was later recaptured in nearby Mechanicsburg.

Other charges include misdemeanor counts of corruption of minors and furnishing alcohol to five teenagers in separate incidents in 1979.

In 1986, Hare was accused of conspiring with a 13-year-old to deliver marijuana to an inmate in the Northumberland County Prison by packing the contraband in a radio. However, two misdemeanor charges of conspiracy to commit delivery of a controlled substance and corruptions of minors were later dropped because of insufficient evidence.

Hare, who was baby-sitting Korbin Rager and Korbin’s half brother Monday, was placed in the Northumberland County Prison, Sunbury, in lieu of $290,000 bail for the new felony offenses.

In Hare’s statements to police this week, he claimed he waited 40 minutes to call 911 while he performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation on the child.

Korbin was rushed to Geisinger Medical Center, Danville, where he was pronounced dead at 8:43 a.m. Monday in the emergency department from an apparent overdose of prescription pills, Montour County Coroner Scott Lynn said.

Hare, who claimed Korbin had a drug problem and was using pills, marijuana and alcohol, had discrepancies in his story and was confused, police said.

Hare was charged Tuesday with the weapons offense after police said they found a hinge-action 12-gauge shotgun and two bolt-action .22-caliber rifles in his bedroom closet, court documents said.

In addition to the guns, police confiscated 44 bottles of various prescription medication, a pedicure skin grinder, a used condom wrapper, Durex lubricant, one empty bottle each of Alprazol, Oxycodone and Triazolam, two bottles of Oxycontin, two paper prescriptions for Oxycontin, a pill cutter and crusher, a cut white straw with a red stripe, a digital scale and a red cloth, according to a search warrant filed in District Judge John Gembic’s Shamokin office.

Information for this story was reported by the Sunbury (Pa.) Daily Item.