California mayor resigns after embezzling church funds, attempting suicide

The mayor of South Lake Tahoe has resigned after sending a shocking letter to the editor to multiple Northern California media outlets where she confessed to an attempted suicide she claimed was brought on by the guilt and shame she felt about embezzling 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 wrote the confessional from a mental health facility where she reportedly spent nearly three weeks.  

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 had nearly died three times in the past five years and that, as a city councilmember, she had endured “countless death threats.”   

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

An attorney for the South Lake Tahoe Community Presbyterian told the San Francisco Chronicle that the church was missing around $300,000 in funds.  

The El Dorado County District Attorney’s Office opened an investigation after Wallace’s confession.  

The mayor’s resignation was emailed to the South Lake Tahoe City Clerk, Susan Blankenship, Monday evening, according to South Tahoe Now.

“I am submitting my resignation to you, effective immediately,” Wallace wrote. “I urge Mayor Pro Tem Cody Bass to resign as well.” 

The Mayor Pro Tem was arrested outside a brewery-restaurant in Stateline, Nevada in late September. He has since been charged by the Douglas County DA’s Office with harassment and trespassing, KTLA’s Bay Area sister-station KRON reported.  

One day after Wallace’s confession letter, on Oct. 7, Bass wrote in a Facebook post, “I will absolutely not be stepping down from my position on the City Council, as I have done nothing wrong. I am committed to going through the due process to prove my innocence.”