An administrator from a tiny Texas city is accused of orchestrating a plot to embezzle hundreds of thousands of dollars — while allegedly leading a campaign of abuse to force out two gay dads who moved to town and opened a taco joint.
According to court documents, she was caught out after the dads started fighting back and demanding answers.
However, at least some evidence of Toni Wheeler's alleged crimes was destroyed when Aurora city hall mysteriously burned down.
This only-in-Texas tale is getting the spotlight after Wheeler — Aurora's former city administrator — testified earlier this year that she's now homeless and living in a city park in Colorado, according to the Dallas Morning News.
Wheeler is accused of trying to force married couple Gary Garcia and Chad Pritchett to close their Atomic Taco restaurant and move out of the county.
The case against her began to mount after Garcia and Pritchett opened the popular outdoor restaurant in the North Texas city of 1,390 people in January 2020 and immediately faced issues with the restaurant's septic system, which Wheeler, their landlord, failed to address.
“The issue was the septic," Garcia told NBC affiliate KXAS in 2021. "It was smelling. It was sewage all over."
When they filed a complaint with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, Wheeler allegedly retaliated by sending city health inspectors to find deficiencies in their business.
Court documents obtained by the Dallas Morning News claim that Wheeler and other city employees repeatedly referred to the couple by anti-gay slurs.
Garcia and Pritchett also alleged that Wheeler made an anonymous false child abuse report against the two dads. They believe the report caused trauma for their young son, Alex.
The fathers also accused Wheeler of creating a fictional persona, Luis Martinez, to "buy" the property in an attempt to terminate the restaurant's lease, per the Dallas Voice. Around that time, they claimed their rent suddenly jumped from $400 to $6,000 a month, the couple said.
Wheeler's alleged attempts to harm the couple's business would come to light after a fire destroyed Aurora's City Hall in 2021.
Council member Deb Terrell had raised concerns about money allegedly missing from the city just days before the fire, KXAS reported.
The timing of the blaze — and Garcia and Pritchett's complaints about Wheeler led officials to look further into what she did with the city's accounts.
"She was suspicious of some things, and so she asked for some records, and all of the sudden we have a fire,” Wise County District Attorney James Stainton recalled to KXAS.
Rangers from the state's Department of Public Safety searched Aurora's bank records and allegedly uncovered financial irregularities traced back to Wheeler.
They accused her of posing as an auditor, created a fake website, and sent misleading emails to investigators, the news station reported.
"It was very apparent at that point that this was an arson investigation but also a misuse of public funds investigation as well,” Stainton said.
Bank records also showed substantial payments to Amazon, a construction company linked to Wheeler, Wheeler's personal credit cards, to individuals through apps like PayPal and Venmo and even to Airbnb, according to KXAS. The payments totaled over $500,000.
Wheeler's attorney, Barry Green, did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.
Wheeler has since been charged with money laundering and stealing more than $767,000 from Aurora's financial accounts.
The City Council fired her amid the criminal charges, and her trial is scheduled for January.
Per the Dallas Morning News, Garcia and Pritchett sued the city and Wheeler, alleging officials violated their civil rights based on sexual orientation discrimination. They settled for $300,000, primarily, to cover legal fees.
While testifying earlier this year, Wheeler said she is homeless and living in a city park, per the outlet.
Green told the Dallas Morning News that Wheeler has pleaded not guilty to the charges.
A civil lawsuit against Wheeler is still pending.