PORTLAND (AP) – Tax activist Carol Palesky, who has led statewide tax-cap efforts, is to appear in court Jan. 10 to face charges of stealing $41,000 from a Brunswick couple for whom she did accounting work for more than a decade.

A Sagadahoc County grand jury earlier this month indicted the Topsham resident on a charge of Class B theft, a felony that can bring a prison sentence of up to 10 years. Palesky remains free while awaiting arraignment in Bath District Court.

The indictment alleges that in 2001 and 2002, Palesky stole payroll taxes that David and Stephanie Stoddard had set aside for federal and state agencies. Palesky also did the taxes and payroll for David Stoddard’s business, Pro-coat Painting.

Palesky denied the charge. She said she did general accounting work for the Stoddards, but the couple never had a contract with her to process their payroll taxes.

“They didn’t pay their payroll taxes,” Palesky said in an interview Thursday. “And now they are trying to get us to pay part of them.”

William Baghdoyan, who is prosecuting the case for the Maine attorney general’s office, said Palesky could face a long jail sentence because of her criminal history. Palesky was convicted in 1987 by a federal jury for embezzling from a Brunswick law firm where she worked as a bookkeeper. In 1998 she was convicted of aggravated forgery after she altered state referendum petitions.

Badhdoyan described the latest matter as “a fairly routine case of somebody entrusted with somebody else’s money, who ends up using it for their own.”

Stephanie Stoddard alleged that Palesky took the money set aside for payroll taxes, but when she filled out the couple’s income-tax forms she reported that they did not need to pay payroll taxes. Stoddard said the discrepancy was discovered in January 2003.

Palesky led the Maine Taxpayers Action Network’s unsuccessful citizen initiative last year to place a cap on property taxes in Maine.

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