Ex-police chief’s wife stole from Yuba City church for lingerie, vacations. Is prison next?

A Northern California church administrator, who swindled a Yuba City church out of more than $360,000 in part from the youth ministry and who used the money for her personal use, was sentenced Tuesday to five years and one month in prison, prosecutors said.

Chanell Easton, 38, the wife of a former Marysville police chief, pleaded guilty last year to 22 counts of wire fraud. She was also found guilty on two counts of aggravated theft in March after a bench trial in Sacramento federal court.

Easton embarked from 2013 to 2018 on an embezzlement scheme in which she used credit cards from St. Andrew Presbyterian Church to book a vacation to Fort Bragg and buy country music concert tickets, jewelry, clothes and lingerie, prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memorandum. She also wrote checks to herself by forging the signatures of the church treasurer and the head volunteer of the church’s food pantry, prosecutors said in a news release.

The $360,000 funds stolen by Easton represents about half of the church’s annual donations given by parishioners, Assistant U.S. Attorney Elliot Wong said, according to court documents.

However, the total amount Easton stole is not known, Wong wrote. She destroyed the church’s financial records when she left her church job, “plainly designed to hide and obstruct any investigation into her embezzlement,” Wong wrote.

Easton and her husband, Aaron Easton, hatched a plan to throw her church-owned work computer in a landfill and rendered the computer’s hard drive unusable, Wong wrote.

The computer was never found, Wong wrote. Aaron Easton, who quit his job as police chief in 2017 amid a sexual assault investigation, could not be reached for comment.

There were mysterious circumstances surrounding the death of Aaron Easton’s former wife, Sara Easton, who suffered a gunshot wound to the head.

Aaron Easton claimed his first wife died by suicide, while her family does not believe she killed herself. A Sacramento Bee investigation found an autopsy did not conclusively rule if Sara Easton died by homicide or suicide.

The couple moved to Oklahoma, where the defendant’s husband became an attorney. They have two sons, ages 13 and 10, who both implored the judge to not sentence their mother to prison, according to letters the boys sent to U.S. District Judge John A. Mendez.

Chanell Easton wrote in a letter addressed to Mendez that she was filled with “deep regret” for her actions and expressed remorse. She cited the lack of a stable home environment while growing up and emotional abuse that had a “profound effect on my development and well-being,” the letter said.

“I am deeply sorry for what I have done,” Easton wrote. “This is not who I am.”

Easton is due back in court Nov. 19 to determine how much restitution she must pay.