Former Black Creek Rescue Service treasurer sentenced to probation for thefts
APPLETON – A former Black Creek Rescue Service treasurer accused of forgery and stealing from the business was convicted of theft June 30 and sentenced to up to two years of probation.
Kathleen Pasch, 64, pleaded no contest to three counts of theft less than $2,500 in a business setting. The original charges filed against Pasch in 2019 — 11 counts of forgery and one count of theft of over $100,000 — were all dismissed, largely due to evidence that was not preserved.
Pasch is also required to pay $7,700 in restitution. If she does not pay the restitution by Aug. 30, she faces 30 days in jail. If Pasch follows all requirements of probation, it may end after one year, court records show.
According to a criminal complaint, Black Creek Rescue Service officers confronted Pasch in August 2018 about missing funds, and Pasch allegedly admitted to taking funds from the service to support a gambling addiction.
Black Creek Police Chief Lowell James along with Jenni Court, former secretary of the rescue service, confirmed 11 checks written to Pasch had been forged, and Wisconsin Department of Justice special agent Bradley Kust discovered they were written and cashed out of order, according to the complaint. The checks were all written in 2018. Eight of the checks were for $700, and three were for $1,050.
Kust, who investigated the case, identified a number of ATM withdrawals, checks, debit card purchases and credit card payments corresponding with the rescue service's accounts between 2015 and 2018 that were believed to be not related to the rescue service, the complaint says.
However, witnesses testified that papers on Pasch's desk were shredded and thrown away after she was placed on leave Aug. 14, 2018, due to the allegations. Among these papers were receipts from business purchases, receipts for ATM withdrawals attached to requests for reimbursement from Black Creek Rescue Service members, reports detailing runs made by the rescue service, contracts with municipalities, spreadsheets with handwritten notes, bank statements, checks and payroll data, according to the complaint.
At a hearing in June 2022, Outagamie County Circuit Court Judge Emily Lonergan said one of two scenarios happened: either members of Black Creek Rescue Service who cleaned off Pasch's desk destroyed documents relevant to the case and Police Chief James neglected to preserve documents until the investigation was handed off to Kust and the DOJ's Division of Criminal Investigation, or Kust was shown Pasch's office and all the documents within days of Pasch going on leave from the rescue service and failed to preserve the paperwork as evidence, "negligently allowing it to be destroyed over time."
In either case, Lonergan ruled last June, "the state has allowed apparently exculpatory evidence to be destroyed." As a result, she dropped the theft of over $100,000 charge, because the loss of the documents meant there was no way to prove Pasch's guilt or innocence.
At a January court hearing, Lonergan said dismissing the theft charge was "a drastic remedy" and not one that she took lightly; however, she ruled at that time she would not be dismissing the 11 counts of forgery, as the defense requested, because unlike the theft charge, those charges did "not require an analysis of every penny ever issued to Pasch during her time at the rescue service."
But as part of a plea deal, on June 30 charges against Pasch were amended and the 11 felony forgery charges were dismissed. She instead pleaded no contest to three misdemeanors, for thefts that occurred on Jan. 22, March 3 and March 9 of 2018, court records say.
Contact Kelli Arseneau at (920) 213-3721 or karseneau@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter at @ArseneauKelli.
This article originally appeared on Appleton Post-Crescent: Former Black Creek Rescue Service treasurer gets probation for theft
