By the time authorities closed in on Theresa Carlquist in August 2010, the former Panther Junior Football treasurer's financial pressures had been mounting for some time.
She had, by her own posts on Facebook, not worked for most of the previous year. The bank started foreclosure actions for the second time in a decade on the family home. Financial judgments and a federal tax lien left her and her husband owing at least $193,000 to creditors and the IRS.
Then, prosecutors charged her with stealing approximately $112,000 from the Panthers, which she had served as a volunteer.
Court documents in Carlquist's criminal and foreclosure cases, as well as life details publicized by Carlquist, paint a timeline of financial struggle for the Carlquists.
Although neither police nor prosecutors have publicly linked money trouble to the criminal allegations, it was considered during the nine-month probe resulting in Carlquist's arrest.
"Her finances were investigated," Downers Grove Police Sgt. David Bormann said, noting the practice is not uncommon during an investigation of a financial crime.
Bormann could not speak to specifics of what police looked for or found during their investigation. Carlquist remains free on $50,000 bond, charged with multiple counts of felony theft and continuing financial crimes. She returns to court next month at the DuPage County Courthouse in Wheaton.
It's unclear how long Carlquist served as treasurer for the Panthers program, but she held the position at least as far back as February 2008, according to prosecutors. That's when they allege she began to pilfer football funds in an embezzlement scheme which eventually had Carlquist cutting at least five checks to herself in 2008, including $16,500 worth in September alone.
Her tenure with Panthers football overlaps with Carlquist owning the now-defunct FYI Dental Lab in Des Plaines. The business, mentioned in Carlquist's employment history on Facebook, operated between 2005 and July 2009.
The employment history then shows an 11-month gap before starting work as a photographer for a Naperville-based company in June 2010, according to Carlquist's Facebook page.
A message left for Carlquist at the business was not returned.
Around the same time Carlquist started her new job, the bank filed foreclosure paperwork on the family's 2,400-square-foot home on Plymouth Road. Records indicate the Carlquists failed to make mortgage payments since November 2009. The Carlquists were served notice in September 2010.
It was a familiar claim. In 2002, the Carlquists fell nearly $15,000 behind on the mortgage and, after failing to show up in court for three months, were hit with a default judgment giving the bank the go-ahead to foreclose. However, the judgment was vacated a month later, records show, but it's unclear how the family kept their home.
They secured a new, adjustable-rate mortgage for $338,400 in 2004, which is the focus of the ongoing foreclosure case, and another mortgage for $37,600 in 2005, records show.
Despite their mortgage payment issues, the couple has paid their property taxes in full and on time since 2007, county tax records show.
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