The mayor of South Lake Tahoe confessed to stealing funds from a church and attempting to commit suicide because of her overwhelming guilt over the crime, according to a self-exposé she sent to a local newspaper.
In a tell-all letter addressed to the South Lake Tahoe community, Mayor Tamara Wallace confessed on Monday that she “took funds” from the city’s Presbyterian church after a prolonged “mental health crisis,” according to the letter published by the Tahoe Daily Tribune. While Wallace claimed that the theft was not discovered by church or legal authorities, she said the guilt caused her to attempt suicide and eventually come clean.
“I am publicly admitting that I took funds from the Presbyterian Church over an extended period,” Wallace wrote. “I was so filled with guilt, shame, and grief that I experienced a mental health crisis that made suicide seem to be the best solution.”
It is unclear whether charges have already been filed against Wallace for her admitted crime.
Wallace said that since her suicide attempt, she spent 18 days in a mental health facility and has adopted a strict therapeutic regimen with medicine and “intense, all-day every-day” counseling, according to the letter.
She recounted several events throughout her life that she claimed led her to attempt to take her own life, including childhood familial abuse, difficulties with her special needs son, her son Christopher’s death and her proximity to the 9/11 attacks in 2001, according to the letter. All of the funds, Wallace said, were meant to take care of her deceased son’s three children.
“My guilt came from my taking funds from a church that, individually and as a group, embraced me, showed me love, and trusted me as their church administrator,” Wallace said in the letter. “The weight of what I had done was so unbearably great that my mind deceived me into the belief that my suicide attempt would protect my husband … and my adult children, who have all devoted their lives to the children of this community.”
She said she believed the theft may have been a part of a coping mechanism and likened herself to a foster child who may hoard items or food as a means of soothing themselves.
“I got straight A’s and have become the hard-working mother and wife who invested herself into helping others, serving the citizens, and trying my absolute best to provide things like police, fire safety, better road repairs, and housing,” Wallace said. “That is the person everyone knows”
The South Lake Tahoe Presbyterian Church and representatives for the city could not immediately be reached for comment.
Wallace apologized for her actions and pledged to pay back the money that she had stolen, but said that she heard through a “second-hand” source that the church may seek charges against her.
She said she sought the unconventional route of publishing her own crime in the paper and decided to admit to wrongdoing instead of “try to lie, hide and delay the consequences of something they have done.”
Wallace’s term for mayor is set to end next month. It is unclear whether the city will seek any disciplinary action for committing theft during her tenure.
“I feel completely vulnerable,” Wallace wrote. “Sorry is not a strong enough word to explain the depths of my regret and shame. I do not think anyone can be as angry at me as I am at myself.”
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