A former Obama administration spokesman who landed a nearly $200,000-a-year job running communications for the City of Minneapolis now faces a felony charge after prosecutors say he stole a coworker’s debit card and used it to buy kratom at a local smoke shop. Adam Fetcher, 42, was formally charged with one count of financial transaction fraud, a charge that caps a swift fall from a career that once put him behind the podium at the Department of Homeland Security and inside Barack Obama’s reelection campaign.
Fetcher’s attorney told Fox News Digital she had no comment. A representative for Obama did not respond to a request for comment. Fetcher himself has said nothing publicly about the charges.
The case lands in a city already drowning in fraud-related scandals and raises fresh questions about the judgment of Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, who brought Fetcher into city government and now faces political fallout on multiple fronts.
Fetcher’s résumé reads like a progressive communications dream. He spent roughly eight months in 2011 as assistant press secretary at DHS, then moved to the Obama Interior Department as press secretary until July 2012. From there, he joined Obama’s reelection campaign as deputy national press secretary. After politics, he held senior communications roles at Patagonia and Lyft before Minneapolis tapped him as its first-ever chief communications officer.
City records show Fetcher was earning close to $200,000 annually in that role. Fox News reported the precise figure at $186,000 a year.
That salary did not stop him, prosecutors allege, from rifling through coworkers’ desks and bags. Three fellow municipal employees reported missing cash and bank cards. The alleged thefts occurred between mid-May and June, just weeks after Fetcher returned from a nine-week, city-approved rehabilitation stay for substance use disorder, the New York Post reported. Sources familiar with the matter told the Minneapolis Star Tribune that Fetcher had revealed to coworkers he was seeking treatment for a substance abuse problem before entering the program.
So the city sent its top spokesman to rehab on the taxpayer’s dime, welcomed him back, and within weeks, coworkers started noticing their wallets were lighter.
The trail led to a south Minneapolis smoke shop. Surveillance cameras captured Fetcher using a stolen charge card to purchase kratom, an herbal supplement that has drawn increasing federal and state scrutiny in recent years, often used to treat opioid withdrawal symptoms. The recorded transactions totaled $481, enough to push the case into felony territory under Minnesota law.
Store manager Hamza Zamara told reporters what happened when staff recognized the pattern. The Washington Examiner reported Zamara’s account of the confrontation:
“We told him, Hey, we know what you’re doing.”
Zamara’s staff provided Fetcher’s license plate number to police. Minneapolis police built a case file and submitted it to the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office for charging consideration. A spokesman for County Attorney Mary Moriarty confirmed the case was under review.
The city moved faster than the prosecutors. Fetcher was fired on July 1 during the police investigation. City Operations Officer Margaret Anderson Kelliher addressed city employees directly about the situation.
“I know this information may be concerning and troubling, and I want to assure you that the City takes this sort of report seriously and has acted accordingly.”
Prosecutors then formally charged Fetcher with the felony count. He is scheduled to appear in court on August 11. Court records show he had no prior criminal history beyond a few traffic violations.
The pattern of public officials facing serious criminal consequences is not unique to Minneapolis. A Michigan Democratic donor recently faced sixteen felony charges over alleged theft from a $20 million taxpayer-funded grant, another case where political connections and public money intersected with alleged fraud.
The Fetcher debacle arrives at the worst possible time for Jacob Frey. The Minneapolis mayor already faces scrutiny over widespread fraud tied to members of the city’s Somali community, a constituency with which Frey has cultivated close political ties. Former U.S. Attorney Joe Teirab has publicly criticized Frey’s response to fraud concerns in the state, appearing on Fox News to press the point.
Fox News Digital reported that a photo caption within its coverage noted Frey and Governor Tim Walz “are at the center of a federal probe into impeding law enforcement.” The nature and current status of that probe remain unclear from available reporting.
Frey has not made any public statement about Fetcher’s conduct or termination. That silence is itself a choice, and one that voters and taxpayers in Minneapolis deserve to hear explained. When your handpicked communications chief gets caught on camera allegedly using stolen cards at a smoke shop, the mayor who hired him owes the public more than a shrug from the city operations office.
The broader pattern of elected officials and their appointees facing criminal accountability has become a recurring theme in American cities. Minneapolis now joins a growing list.
Set aside the politics for a moment and consider the raw facts. A man earning $186,000 to $200,000 a year, depending on which city records you consult, allegedly stole cash and cards from the desks and purses of three coworkers. He allegedly blew through hundreds of dollars at smoke shops buying kratom. He did this, sources say, shortly after returning from a rehabilitation program his employer had approved and presumably paid for.
Breitbart noted that CCTV footage captured $481 in kratom purchases made with a stolen card, the kind of evidence that makes a defense attorney’s job considerably harder.
The victims here are the city employees who went to work, left their belongings at their desks, and discovered their money and cards had been taken by the person down the hall making six figures. These are the people who actually show up and do the unglamorous work of city government. They deserved better from a colleague, and from the leadership that put him there.
Cases like this echo the pattern seen when a Mississippi district attorney pleaded guilty in a federal bribery scheme, public servants entrusted with authority who allegedly used their positions to enrich themselves at others’ expense.
Several questions hang over this case. What specific dollar amounts were taken from each of the three victims? What rehabilitation facility did Fetcher attend, and did the city cover the cost? What is the maximum penalty he faces under Minnesota’s financial transaction fraud statute? And perhaps most pointedly: did anyone in Frey’s administration flag concerns about Fetcher’s fitness to return to work after rehab, or did they simply wave him back in?
Fetcher’s court date is set for August 11. Until then, the man who once spoke for the president of the United States will answer to a Minnesota judge about a stolen debit card and a smoke shop receipt.
Meanwhile, the broader question of accountability in Minneapolis city government, from high-profile firings to fraud probes, remains very much open.
Minneapolis didn’t need another scandal. But when you staff city hall based on political résumés instead of character, you tend to get exactly what you hired for.
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