The wife of the police chief the town of Glenrock fired two years ago has been charged with stealing money from a church in Tucson, Arizona, according to media reports and court documents.
Carmen Theel, 54, is scheduled to attend a March 29 case management hearing in the Pima County Court in Arizona, where she faces multiple felony fraud charges, according to court documents.
The charges allege that she stole more than $100,000 from a Tucson church from 2012-2018, Channel 13 News in Mesa, Arizona, reported.
She’s accused of entering false information in the church’s check register spreadsheet to hide money from church employees so she could take it for herself.
Theel now lives in Wisconsin, and the Arizona judge overseeing her case has allowed her to stay there throughout her prosecution, court documents indicate.
Wyoming Town Fallout
Carmen and her husband, David Theel, in December 2021 sued the Wyoming town of Glenrock and its police department after the City Council fired him.
The Theels and the city reached a settlement agreement last month and the U.S. District Court for Wyoming dismissed the case last week.
Their original lawsuit accused town leaders of wrongly firing David Theel after conducting one-sided investigations and labeling him as insubordinate, hostile, narcissistic and undutiful.
The Theels originally asked to be compensated for what they’d deemed loss of income, reduced capacity to earn income, embarrassment, humiliation, mental anguish, loss of enjoyment of life, mental care, temporary and permanent loss of physical and mental functioning, and other damages stemming from David Theel’s firing and the circumstances around it.
Glenrock Mayor Bruce Roumell could not be immediately reached by phone Tuesday.
Meanwhile, RICO
David Theel served formerly as the Pima County Sheriff’s Department captain, according to media reports. In 2017, the media reported allegations he requested RICO expenditures that were not allowed under federal guidelines.
The FBI in 2016 had opened an investigation into the sheriff’s office that alleged that law enforcement agents misused hundreds of thousands of dollars in RICO funds.
Theel in his original lawsuit denied the racketeering claim, saying the police department and mayor “made false accusations regarding D. Theel being involved as a participant in a RICO matter at his previous employment.”
