Former Greensburg Police chief arrested over missing cash
Posted: Feb 17, 2015 12:31 PM Updated: Feb 17, 2015 1:53 PM
By WTHR Channel 13
GREENSBURG, Ind. -
Former Greensburg Police Chief Stacey Chasteen was arrested Tuesday following an Indiana State Police audit.
Court documents say Chasteen stole $73,000 from the evidence room, gambled it away, then lost a further $57,000 intended to replace the original stolen funds. Chasteen's husband, Greensburg Fire Chief Scott Chasteen, says he knew about the theft but didn't come forward in order to protect his family.
Chasteen, 49, of Seymour, turned herself in Tuesday morning at the Decatur County Jail. She faces one count of theft and another count of official misconduct. Each charge is a level 6 felony.
The charges follow an "extensive investigation of the Greensburg Police evidence records" during Chasteen's term as chief and her tenure as the department's property officer, according to Indiana State Police.
Read the court documents here.
According to the probable cause affidavit, Chasteen resigned as police chief in late November 2014. She had been chief since 2011 and property officer since 2002.
The current property officer reported that he was having trouble finding cash that should have been in the property room - specifically, around $73,000 confiscated from a massage parlor. The property officer, Bill Meyerrose, reported that the last time he'd seen the money was on the day it was confiscated in September 2012 and placed into evidence. He also couldn't find any property receipts for the missing cash.
Interim Police Chief Brendan Bridges contacted Indiana State Police when he and Meyerrose were unable to locate the cash.
They also reported that when they asked Chasteen to help them find the missing money, she said she didn't have time because she was working. On another occasion, she said she hoped she hadn't released the money or possibly that inadvertently destroyed it. None of these explanations seemed plausible to Bridges or Meyerrose.
Indiana State Police conducted an audit of the Greensburg Police Department's evidence room in late January. They discovered 13 property receipts for cash being stored in the evidence room - cash that they couldn't find, including the $73,000 from the raid.
Chasteen's husband Scott, who is the Greensburg Fire chief, says his wife had a gambling problem that led to her charging over $30,000 on a credit card. That resulted in them having to file bankruptcy in 2010. In June 2013, Scott Chasteen said Stacey told him she was in trouble because she'd taken money out of the Greensburg Police Department's evidence room and needed up to $70,000 to return it. Stacey told her husband the cash she'd taken had been from the massage parlor bust.
Scott Chasteen said he and Stacey borrowed $57,000 from family and used their personal funds to get the cash so Stacey could place it back in evidence. He said after they'd gotten the cash together, they went to Indiana Grand Casino in Shelbyville to run the cash through a money machine to get the proper denominations so it could be put back in evidence.
Scott said he assumed Stacey had put the money back. In fact, she told investigators that she gambled not only the original $73,000 from the property room, but also the $57,000 intended to replace what she'd originally, allegedly taken.
Scott Chasteen said he realized he had a responsibility to report what he knew to the mayor. But he justified his inaction because he was protecting his wife, himself, his position and future political ambitions, according to court documents.
www.wthr.com/story/28128743/former-greensburg-police-chief-arrested-following-audit
