Ex-trustee pleads guilty to 4 indictments; faces $44K in restitution

LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Former Fairfield Township Trustee Taletha Coles racked up 42 grand jury indictments for allegations from her nearly four years in office, and Thursday, she pleaded guilty to four of them.

Coles, who used township money for her person purchases, faces up to four years in prison and more than $44,000 in restitution, plus potential fines, when she's sentenced on Jan. 22.

Several of Coles' accusers attended her hearing Thursday morning. Generally speaking, they were pleased that Coles will soon be held to account for her actions.

“She didn’t steal from an individual," former township employee Kelli Stump said. "She stole from the entire community over and over and over again.

“She didn’t think she was going to get caught, and quite frankly, her own actions brought her to this point,” Stump said.

Coles pleaded guilty to tax exemption fraud, a Class B misdemeanor, admitting she used the township's tax exemption to avoid paying sales taxes on personal purchases from Menards.

She pleaded guilty to conflict of interest, a Level 6 felony, for selling her personal property to the township. This purchase netted Coles $4,437.45 in personal income, according to the amount listed in restitution.

She also pleaded guilty to two indictments of official misconduct for a variety of allegations she misused her elected office during 2021 and 2022.

The other 38 indictments will be dismissed when she is sentenced on Jan. 22.

Coles remains free until her sentencing hearing.

Restitution

A restitution hearing is scheduled for 10:30 a.m. Jan. 12, after which Tippecanoe Superior 1 Judge Randy Williams will determined the total amount of restitution. Tippecanoe County Deputy Prosecutor Natasha Corbett said restitution was being requested for all 42 indictments.

Williams read into the court record the total of $44,367.63 in restitution proposed by the prosecutors.

Throughout her term in office, Coles used the township credit card for personal purchases. Credit card statements Coles was court-order to show to the public indicated Coles spent taxpayer money for meditation, yoga and online learning, among other things, as well as other allegations of misuse of taxpayer's money.

Among the plea agreement restitutions read in court included $282.31 to the Indiana Department of Revenue for the sales taxes it is due from Coles' private purchases, $1,378.45 to Fairfield Township for rebates earned to the township but used by Coles,

In November 2020, Coles had the township employees lock the township office doors and meet her for lunch and a spa day — on the taxpayers' dime. This was done to block the township board, which whom Coles was angry, from meeting that morning.

For that outing, Coles will pay restitution of $270 for massages at the Foot Lounge, and $112 for the staff's pedicures and manicures at the Silky Nails. She also will pay back $1,382.73 for food purchases during her tenure as trustee, according to the restitution proposed in the plea agreement and read in court during the hearing.

Eight days before Coles resigned on Oct. 19, 2022, she used taxpayer money to pay $10,000 for continued legal representation, which was her legal defense for the indictments. She will be paying taxpayers back, based on the plea agree read in court.

More: Fairfield Township Trustee Taletha Coles resigns

More: Trustee Taletha Coles paid $10K to attorney with taxpayer money

Coles likely also will pay restitution for personal purchase at local stores, as well as paying more than $23,000 back to taxpayers for her purchase of online training from personal improvement and motivational websites, according to the court hearing.

Coles also will pay back $612.84 for purchases she made during a Lions Club trip.

Coles did not speak at length during the hearing, and only answered questions from Corbett or Williams.

Coles speaks out on J&C Facebook comments

“She did not want to answer those questions especially since she was just on Facebook a few days ago decrying her innocence,” said Trisha Fogleman, one of the state's potential witnesses against Coles and whistleblowers.

Starting on Monday, a Facebook profile named "Taletha Coles" posted in the readers comments on the Journal & Courier's Facebook post on the May 2, 2022, story titled "Fairfield Township taxpayers fund trustee's meditation, massages, online learning."

The comments have grammatical and punctuation errors that are consistent with Coles' earlier statements to the Journal & Courier and other written posts by Coles.

The Journal & Courier left a voicemail and sent an email asking for comments from Coles on the Facebook posts, her guilty plea and how the Facebook posts align with her admission of guilt in court.

She did not respond.

By Friday morning, the Taletha Coles profile deleted the posts.

On Monday, the Taletha Coles profile wrote a Facebook post on a Journal & Courier story proclaiming her innocence. On Thursday, the day she pleaded guilty, Coles posted more retorts to people who left comments on the story in May 2022.

The Taletha Coles profile responded Monday to a reader's post from 2022 in which the poster called Coles a power-hungry, dishonest trustee.

"The thing here is, what you say, I am not," the Taletha Coles profile wrote. "I'm a servant not a politician and I wasn't dishonest, the people that were in place to help me were dishonest with the information they gave me and staff and others getting by with destroying receipts and documents is dishonest ... ."

The reader responded Monday to the Coles profile post, writing, "You used monies belonging to the township. That's THEFT!!!! Therefore you are dishonest. ..."

"This is just what you heard, it doesn't make it true," the Taletha Coles profile wrote Monday to the man's reply.

"Then why are you pleading guilty," the man retorted.

Coles hasn't responded.

The Taletha Coles profile defended Coles Thursday from other readers' opinions.

"I didn't take any money people," the Taletha Coles profile posted Thursday hours after she pleaded guilty to conflict of interest for selling her property to the township for more than $4,000.

Reach Ron Wilkins at rwilkins@jconline.com. Follow on Twitter: @RonWilkins2.

This article originally appeared on Lafayette Journal & Courier: Ex-trustee pleads guilty to 4 indictments; faces $44K in restitution