(CAPITOL NEWS ILLINOIS) – A Metro East police chief spent more than $100,000 of public money intended to combat drug use and support a local fire protection district on personal expenses, including basketball tickets, travel, and diamond engagement ring, according to a federal indictment.
A federal grand jury returned a four-count indictment on Tuesday charging now former Carlyle Police Chief Mark Pingsterhaus on wire fraud and theft of public money counts. He resigned in December after the federal investigation became public.
“We strongly support law enforcement because the overwhelming majority of officers service with dedication, honor and courage. But when any officer, especially the chief, betrays the community they are sworn to protect, we will take decisive action,” said U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Illinois Steven. D. Weinhoeft in a statement.
Investigation details
A Capitol News Illinois and Illinois Answers Project investigation published in February detailed the probe into Pingsterhaus, who leased office space in the police state to an FBI task force that battles public corruption in southern Illinois.
A search warrant obtained by the news organizations stated Federal Bureau of Investigations agents were looking for correspondence, gifts, keys, photographs “indicating a personal relationship or travel” with a person reporters learned was a public official in a neighboring county. Agents sought police department records dating back to 2012 — when Pingsterhaus, who is married, became chief.
The indictment alleged that Pingsterhaus engaged in this fraud for more than eight years, in part, to conceal that personal relationship.
Pingsterhaus used a city credit card to purchase tickets for professional women’s basketball game between the Washington Mystics and the Indiana Fever, featuring WNBA star Caitlin Clark, in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 19, 2024.
Pingsterhaus also acted as the financial officer for the Carlyle Fire Protection District. He used the district’s bank card to buy a 3/4 carat “composite diamond split shank engagement ring,”according to the indictment.
He also made unauthorized purchases on the district’s credit card, the charges stated.
Federal prosecutors also alleged Pingsterhaus also wrote checks for unauthorized expenses on the Carlyle Fire Protection District’s account.
Pingsterhaus also allegedly devised a way to get cash. The indictment detailed an alleged scheme where Pingsterhaus would have an unnamed employee cash checks from the city’s drug and education account, telling the employee that the funds were to be used as “buy money” in undercover drug operations for the police department.
“Instead, Pingsterhaus took the money for himself,” according to the indictment.
Pingsterhaus could not be reached for comment.
‘Full confidence in the current police department’
During part of the time when federal prosecutors alleged Pingsterhaus committed the crimes, he shared office space with the home of the FBI’s Southern Illinois Transnational Organized Crime West Task Force, or TOC-W. Pingsterhaus signed a lease with the FBI to house the task force in 2021.
The 12-member task force occupies a designated office within the Carlyle police department secured behind a keypad.
The task force focuses on international drug trafficking rings operating in southern Illinois, money laundering, extortion, kidnapping, public corruption and murder.
“When resources meant for community elevation are diverted for personal gain, it undermines the safety we work so hard to build and harms the community we swore to protect,” said Ruben Marchand-Morales, special agent in charge of the FBI Springfield field office.
After the indictment, the city released a statement on their social media.
“The City of Carlyle would like to assure the citizens of the community that police services have not and will not be affected by this investigation. The City of Carlyle has full confidence in the current police department. We want to make clear, no one else in the Carlyle Police Department was involved. The city has total confidence in the new Police Chief Jason Herzing and all the officers.”
Herzing could not be reached for comment on Thursday.
Pingsterhaus, 51, must appear in federal court in East St. Louis to answer the theft and wire fraud charges on March 16.
‘It’s Just Awful’
The federal grand jury returned the indictment on Tuesday — the same day police found 41-year-old Sadie Tull dead inside her Carlyle home during a welfare check.
“All of this has just shook our community to its core,” said Mayor Judy Smith on Thursday. “It’s just awful. I hope that we can get find out who did this so we can begin to heal.”
Carlyle, the county seat of Clinton County, is located 50 miles east of St. Louis. It’s home to about 3,200 residents and the largest manmade lake in Illinois. There hasn’t been a murder in Carlyle in more than a decade.
The Major Case Squad of Greater St. Louis Area is working the murder case. The Major Case Squad is composed of investigators that assist the local police departments that are detached from their local departments for five to 15 days to assist with the investigation of murders in the St. Louis area.
Tull ran a dog grooming business called Furfetti Pet Salon. She was well-known and well-loved in the community, Smith said.
One of Carlyle’s officers is assigned to the Major Case Squad working Tull’s murder, Smith said.
Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.
