UNDATED (WSAU) – A Barron County woman is being indicted by a federal grand jury for wire fraud and tax crimes at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in Rice Lake.
63-year-old Deb Marcellus from Turtle Lake is charged with seven counts of wire fraud and four counts of filing false income tax returns. The indictment also accuses her of scheming to defraud the church while she served as their director of development from January 2011 to April 2017.
Prosecutors claim she wrote the checks to herself, and then changed the payee’s name on the church’s bookkeeping records.
Marcellus is accused of stealing more than $800,000 from the church’s bank accounts and using them for personal benefit and gambling. If convicted she could face up to 25-years in prison.
The MetroSource news wire contributed to this report.
