A former city manager will go to prison for filing false charges against a gay couple
DAVID TAFFET | Senior Staff Writer
Taffet@DallasVoice.com
Former Aurora City Manager Toni Wheeler was sentenced to 15 years in prison for embezzlement and 15 months in prison for filing a false CPS complaint against a gay couple.
Other charges against her including arson, additional embezzlement cases and three more false CPS complaints have been dropped according to Gary Garcia, the target of the one complaint that was pressed. He said the sentences will be served concurrently.
One of the dropped CPS reports Wheeler filed was against her own nephew who worked for Garcia.
“All the DA wanted to do was have her convicted,” Garcia said, frustrated that so many charges against her were dropped. The arson case involved burning down Aurora’s city hall building. The additional embezzlement charges were harder to prove. And the other families she falsely charged with abuse just wanted their cases to go away.
But Garcia and his husband Chad Pritchett wanted to clear their names and make it clear to the community that they were fit parents. So they pressed the county to pursue those charges.
Garcia said the cases never went to trial but were decided in plea deal that went before a Wise County judge.
Garcia’s dealings with Wheeler went far beyond the child abuse charges Wheeler threw at his family.
ATOMIC TACO
After working in corporate America for a number of years, Garcia decided to follow a family tradition and open a restaurant. His family has owned restaurants in Colorado since 1960.
He and his husband looked for a location near their Wise County house and found a new food truck yard opening. But they wanted something more permanent and found a developer putting together food sheds built around a common seating area.
One thing worried Garcia — they’d be on a septic system. But Pritchett assured him that was common in rural America.
So they built their shed and worked with the city of Aurora to make sure they were compliant.
Atomic Taco opened in January 2020, and within two weeks, the septic alarm went off. The entire area smelled like sewage.
They called the city and that’s when they learned the septic system was buried under the patio.
The septic system was temporarily fixed. Business took off and they even got a write-up in Texas Monthly.
But the septic system quickly backed up again.
The Texas Commission of Environmental Quality came out and said the system wasn’t legal. So the landlord — Toni Wheeler — installed sprayers that sprayed the building and the customers with sewage.
Other shed owners blamed Garcia for causing trouble by calling the state environmental agency and began telling customers to avoid Atomic Taco because it was run by “fags.”
By July, sewage was coming up from the ground so Garcia called a lawyer. But he wanted to continue doing business there and offered to help pay to fix the septic system.
That’s when he had his first indication something was up with the landlord. He received an email saying the property was sold to a company in Aurora, Colorado, and the monthly rent was increasing from $400 to $6,000.
Garcia asked some of the other shed owners whether they received a rent increase; they told him they did and were just going to pay it. Knowing it was economically unfeasible, he tried to get in touch with the new landlord but was told the contact information wasn’t legitimate.
He concluded the other shed owners were in on the scam and by October vacated the premises.
CONVICTION
CPS contacted Garcia and Pritchett that a report had been filed, but she believed it was filed with malicious intent.
Garcia said his six-year-old son was taken from class “and asked if your daddies touch you.” Wheeler claimed the boy was bruised so CPS had him remove his shirt. There was no evidence of bruising.
And Wheeler charged “these two men are sex trafficking their son from Atomic Taco,” Garcia said. Again there was no evidence of anything being sold out of the restaurant other than tacos.
Within a month, they were cleared of any wrong-doing, and they filed a complaint against Wheeler.
State Rep. Jessica Gonzalez worked with Garcia on a bill that was eventually filed by state Rep Jon Rosenthal.
“We got part of the bill passed,” Garcia said.
Had it passed, the bill would have made filing a false CPS report a harsher crime. What passed was a provision that filing reports is no longer done anonymously.
Meanwhile, Wheeler also pleaded guilty to embezzlement of $300,000 from the city of Aurora. She charged trips, purchases from Amazon for equipment for her own restaurant and a truck used by a contractor to help build out the food shed yard including Atomic Taco.
But all evidence of any criminal activity disappeared when Aurora’s city hall suddenly burned down. Before an investigation took place, city officials announced it was an electrical fire and all city documents were destroyed.
The amount Wheeler was charged with embezzling was what was charged to credit cards. Garcia said they’ll never know how much was actually stolen. Because there was never a full investigation into the fire, arson charges were never filed.
Garcia and Pritchett filed a lawsuit against Wheeler and her husband, a friend of the Wheelers and the owner of one of the other restaurants. All colluded to put Atomic Taco out of business, the suit claimed. All are in bankruptcy except the friend of Wheeler’s.
The civil court found them liable for about $7.5 million in damages.
Wheeler is in prison and won’t be available to make restitution for several years. Her husband claims to have had a stroke and can’t pay but was on a Zoom call for the civil case. He has property in Comanche County, but that’s protected under his bankruptcy filing. Another hearing is set for December for Wheeler’s friend whose attorney has dropped him as a client. Garcia said he doesn’t know how that will affect the case.
The property where the food court development stood was repossessed.
While awaiting a final outcome of their civil suit, Garcia is contemplating opening a new travel-related business and has been substitute teaching in his son’s school.