Rochester, MN (KROC AM News) - A former Rochester city employee has been charged with possessing stolen property - boxes of personnel files and documents.

The felony charge has been filed against 54-year-old Debra Coyle.

The criminal complaint says forty boxes of the documents were found in a local storage unit Coyle had been renting for several years. An employee discovered the sensitive documents after opening the unit because Coyle had stopped paying rent. Police were notified in January 2015.

Coyle admitted taking the documents from the city’s Human Resources office. She told an investigator she began taking the documents from work because she had planned to use them in a lawsuit against her supervisor, who she said had been “bullying and harassing her.”

She apparently decided against the lawsuit after accepting a severance package in 2012. Coyle says she last saw the documents in 2013.

Among the documents and files were social security numbers, payroll sheets and performance evaluations.

Coyle has been ordered to make her first court appearance in November.

 

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