Cases against Tippecanoe County's wayward trustees should end in 2024
LAFAYETTE, Ind. — This should be the year that Tippecanoe County puts its history of two wayward township trustees in the rearview mirror.
Starting at the end of 2020, Wabash Township ex-Trustee Jennifer Teising and Taletha Coles, ex-trustee for Fairfield Township, seemed to garner unflattering headlines faster than an Indy 500 car making laps around a race track.
Both were indicted — Teising in May 2021 and Coles in November 2022.
Teising's case is pending a decision at the Indiana Supreme Court, and Coles pleaded guilty in early November. Her plea will be accepted or rejected on Jan. 22 at a sentencing hearing.
Jennifer Teising's case
Teising did not live in Wabash Township starting in June 2020 after she sold her West Lafayette house. She changed her legal documents to indicate her residence was at her ex-boyfriend's house at 132 Knox Drive. But she didn't live there, either, according to evidence presented during her trial. She stayed at the Knox Drive house on rare occasions.
Grand jurors indicted Teising on 21 counts of theft for receiving her paycheck while not complying with Indiana law that requires a trustee to reside in the township.
Teising was found guilty in January 2022 after a bench trial, but she appealed her conviction and her sentence. She won the appeal, but the state petitioned for the Indiana Supreme Court to take the case.
The Indiana Supreme Court heard arguments in late June as to whether they should accept the case, and if they do accept it, how did Teising and the state believe the court should rule.
As of the first few days of 2024, the Indiana Supreme Court has not indicated whether it will accept the case, and it has not published an opinion in Teising's case.
Taletha Coles' case
Teising's case, followed by the state investigation into Coles prompted lawmakers to amend Indiana laws for removing trustees.
The new, four-step process became law July 1, 2022, and later that month, the Fairfield Township Board took the first step to remove Coles by adopting a resolution to ouster the one-term trustee from office.
That was followed in August 2022 by a similar resolution adopted by the Tippecanoe County Commissioner, and in September 2022 by the Tippecanoe County Council.
Coles' status as trustee was set for a hearing on Oct. 19, 2022, but she resigned that morning. Two weeks later, a grand jury indicted Coles on 42 charges.
Coles used township taxpayer money for her personal use, according to her Nov. 9 guilty pleas.
She refused to allow the public or the Journal & Courier access to public records to inspect her spending. The Indiana Public Access Counselor ruled against her in December 2021, and the Journal & Courier sued to inspect the records. At the end of April 2022, the Journal & Courier won the case and inspected the township's credit card statements, showing Coles' misuse of taxpayer money.
Coles pleaded guilty to four of 42 indictments, and the Indiana State Board of Accounts recently published its investigation indicating that Coles misused more than $138,000 of taxpayer money.
There will be a hearing on Jan. 12 to determine how much restitution Coles will be ordered to pay.
She will be sentenced at 9:30 a.m. on Jan. 22 in Tippecanoe Superior 1.
The Journal & Courier will report on both hearings.
Reach Ron Wilkins at rwilkins@jconline.com. Follow on Twitter: @RonWilkins2.
This article originally appeared on Lafayette Journal & Courier: Lafayette and West Lafayette's ex-trustees court battles end in 2024
