HARDIN CO.— The woman who found herself at the center of a failed attempt to be used as a tool by the county prosecutor to bring down the county sheriff and his father has now had that office turn its attentions on her.
In May, a little-known Elizabethtown woman, Carrie Atkinson, 28, had been arrested and charged with cannabis possession.
Also in May Disclosure learned that state’s attorney Tara Wallace and her personal investigator, Tom Maynor (a man fired as chief deputy and who had taken pictures of women in the bathroom at another job) were engaged in a secret investigation designed to smear the names of both sheriff JT Fricker and his father.
Questions also surfaced at about the same time that Maynor and Wallace may have been more than just office mates.
Wallace turned on the newly elected sheriff as soon as she realized he would not allow her to run his department.
It was Fricker’s firing of Maynor that set Wallace on the warpath.
Maynor was contacted by the former jealous, possessive boyfriend of Atkinson, Tim Dillard, who had long believed Atkinson was having an affair with the elder Fricker and exchanging sex for money and/or pills.
Dillard had contacted Disclosure in January 2011 by e-mail and said that despite him constantly stalking Atkinson around town and specifically to the Fricker’s salvage yard on numerous occasions, he never caught her doing anything.
“I just know that’s what is going on,” Dillard said on one of his e-mails to Disclosure. “I’ve never seen it and can’t prove it, but I just know.”
Opportunity knocks
When Dillard heard of the petty arguing behind the scenes involving the newly elected prosecutor Tara Wallace, her investigator Tom Maynor and his imagined archenemy the Frickers, he saw an opportunity and shared his conspiracy theory with Maynor.
It is unknown if Dillard ever realized that Atkinson had been a friend of the elder Fricker and his wife for years, even a distant relative, and as the matriarch of the family’s health waned it was common for Atkinson to stop by the elder Fricker’s office at the salvage yard and ask after her.
Maynor, who was fighting to save his job/career, also saw an opportunity and sold Dillard’s half-baked suspicions to Wallace, who was scorned because she was not going to run the entire county as she had planned by micro-managing elected offices.
Stories began to surface surrounding Wallace and Maynor being seen together meeting in remote locations and then later lying about it when confronted.
It is unclear if the two were just plotting out of the eyesight of others who worked at the courthouse, or if their rumored extramarital affair was more than just rumor.
Back to Atkinson’s pot arrest
As luck would have it for the would-be conspirators, Atkinson had gotten herself arrested.
Within hours, in May, Maynor, against policy, took Atkinson from her cell in the sheriff’s department and over to Wallace’s office where he questioned her by himself for more than an hour.
Wallace stepped in at one point and let it be known what she and Maynor suspected and expected to hear.
The deal was: Atkinson says she had been trading sex for money/pills with the elder Fricker and that he and his son the newly elected sheriff had been operating a super-methamphetamine lab and cannabis distribution operation out of the salvage yard for years.
In essence Dillard single-handedly handed Atkinson to the wolves, believing through the pressure and threats of his new-found associates his obsessions would be proven true.
But Atkinson refused to lie.
To add pressure and show she had the power to put her behind bars or let her go, in a show of good faith and in an attempt to sway Atkinson to her way of thinking, Wallace dismissed the drug possession charges and let her go.
Payback?
Wallace and Maynor sold the Dillard story to Illinois State Police and even the Federal Bureau of Investigations, who hammered at Atkinson on more than half a dozen occasions in an attempt to get her to give a statement she claims would have been a total lie.
And now, after Maynor was disgraced and let go, Wallace, exposed for the vindictive harpie she is, and Dillard appearing to have committed suicide the day the story broke in the Disclosure online edition, Atkinson has been arrested.
On the surface it appears that on August 10 Atkinson was in Rosiclare when she got into a scuffle with her daughter Emily, age 10-11.
At one point she and her daughter are said to have ended up on the ground with Atkinson, who is not much bigger than a 12-year-old, having the girl in a choke hold.
Then, as luck would have it for Wallace, an Illinois State Trooper, Bridget R. Rice happened to stop Atkinson as she was leaving the scene.
Atkinson admitted she had been drinking and was subsequently arrested.
In all she was charged with one count of Endangering the Life or Health of a Child, Aggravated Battery and cited for Leaving the Scene of a Domestic and Driving Under the Influence.
What’s underneath?
On the surface it looks like a parent who had been drinking got into a scuffle with her child and things got out of hand.
But with Wallace already being caught in at least two abuses of her office trying to convict those who cross her, it could very well be payback time for Ms. Atkinson, who would not lie to state and federal authorities for Wallace and Maynor and disgrace an entire family and possibly send an innocent man to prison.
Atkinson has been freed after posting $1,500 cash bond.
How long she remains free remains to be seen.
Wallace has recently been described by those close to her as appearing unstable at best.