After suicide attempt, California mayor confesses to embezzling church funds

In a long letter sent to multiple Northern California media outlets, the mayor of South Lake Tahoe said she attempted suicide because of the guilt and shame she felt from embezzling funds from a local church.  

“This is the hardest thing I have ever had to do. I am publicly admitting that I took funds from the Presbyterian Church over an extended period,” Mayor Tamara Wallace wrote in an Oct. 6 letter

published in the Tahoe Daily Tribune. “Because of this, on September 11, 2025, my birthday, I tried to end my life. 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.” 

Wallace, who reportedly wrote the letter from a residential mental health facility she checked herself into after the suicide attempt, said she’d been stealing funds from Lake Tahoe Community Presbyterian Church, where she was an administrator, for an extended period of time, KTLA’s sister-station FOX40 reported.

While claiming full responsibility for her actions and, according to her, turning over a list of account numbers and passwords to church officials so her “actions could be more easily discovered,” the mayor said that while she was embezzling the funds, she’d justified her actions by using the money to help others, including her deceased son’s three boys.  

“But that does not free us from the earthly consequences of our actions,” Wallace wrote after saying she knows Jesus Christ has forgiven her. “I must repay every cent and accept whatever punishment comes to me.” 

The mayor went on to share a litany of traumatic events in her life, from suffering abuse as a child and not being believed by her “alcoholic mother” to her son’s fatal fentanyl poisoning and her experience during the 9/11 terrorist attack in Washington D.C. 

She then wrote that her oldest son barely survived a rare cancer and had to have his leg amputated after nine surgeries, that she was bedridden for 10 years with migraines and fevers caused by an autoimmune disorder and that her adopted special needs son’s behavior at times put her and her husband in personal danger.  

The list of traumas also included that her husband has nearly died three times in the past five years and that, as a city councilmember, she has endured “countless death threats.”  

“Still, these things may be reasons, but not an excuse for my behavior,” Wallace wrote. “There is no excuse.” 

Sheree Juarez, public information officer for South Lake Tahoe, told SFGATE that the mayor’s actions had not caused the city any “fiscal harm,” though a spokesperson for the El Dorado County District Attorney’s office told the outlet that they were investigating the theft after the mayor’s confession.  

“Here it is…rather than be like many public servants and individuals who try to lie, hide, and delay the consequences of something they have done, I am taking a different path. I am telling the truth and admitting what I have done,” Wallace wrote.  

Her letter finished with thanks to her husband, her three living sons and daughter who, while “hurt, angry, and embarrassed,” have shown her forgiveness.  

If you or anyone you know is suffering from a mental health crisis, professional support can be found for free by dialing or texting 988. Counselors are also available by chat on www.988lifeline.org.