A $5 overage in a deposit at STAR Transit ultimately exposed what prosecutors allege was a months-long scheme by a trusted 16-year employee who was taking cash from the fare envelopes of bus drivers and using the public-transit operation’s fuel cards to gas up her own vehicle.
By the time STAR finished going backward through its books, the organization calculated that $2,054 in cash had disappeared and another $841.03 was charged to STAR fuel cards in 26 unauthorized transactions, court documents say.
The total — $2,895.03 — isn't the staggering dollar figure sometimes associated with embezzlement cases.
STAR Director Dwane Pacheco readily acknowledges that.
“It was a fairly small amount,” he told Cowboy State Daily. “We don’t have a huge budget. Let’s put it that way.”
But Pacheco said the money isn't what stings most.
The woman accused of taking it, Thelma Susan Cudney, 50, had worked for STAR for 16 years. She wasn't a new hire or a peripheral employee.
She was a supervisor.
“She had a lot of trust,” Pacheco said. “Obviously, we’re disappointed, disheartened, all of the above.”
Cudney is now charged with felony theft and unlawful use of a credit card in Sweetwater County. Her case was bound over after a Sept. 15 preliminary hearing and filed in Sweetwater County District Court on Thursday.
$5 Discrepancy
STAR requires its drivers to turn in the cash collected from bus fares in secure envelopes along with signed daily reconciliation sheets, Deputy County and Prosecuting Attorney Augustus Wagner wrote in an affidavit supporting the charges.
A dispatcher counts the money in front of the driver, verifies the total and puts the money into a secure drawer. Those daily figures are then entered into a master spreadsheet used to reconcile STAR’s weekly bank deposit.
Cudney figured out a way around that system, prosecutors allege.
After drivers had already turned in their money and completed their paperwork, Cudney reportedly altered the sheets to show that less cash had been collected than the drivers actually reported, the affidavit says.
She then removed the difference from the envelopes and created master spreadsheets reflecting the lower amounts so the bank deposits would balance.
It apparently worked — until somebody else did her job.
While Cudney was away from the office, another STAR employee handled the banking duties and noticed a $5 overage in a deposit from the previous Friday, Wagner wrote.
The employee went looking for the source of five extra dollars.
Instead, the employee began finding irregularities scattered throughout STAR’s financial records.
“We found probably some holes in our controls, and she exploited them,” Pacheco said.
Once STAR recognized there was a problem and began working backward through its records, the pattern became obvious.
“The percentage was small enough,” he said. “That’s how she was able, I think, to fly underneath the radar for so long.”
‘Skimming Patterns’
At about 4:30 p.m. April 29, Pacheco called Cudney into STAR’s office.
When Pacheco confronted her with the discrepancies uncovered by the audit, Cudney allegedly told him she had been taking money.
She described how she did it, telling Pacheco she would remove cash from drivers’ envelopes while preparing STAR’s deposits, Wagner wrote.
Cudney reportedly said she'd begun doing it in December 2025, but STAR's records suggest it might have started earlier.
The organization found what it believed were “skimming patterns” in a statement from November 2025.
Rock Springs Police Officer Joseph Machado contacted Cudney at her home later that same day.
She allegedly admitted again that she'd been stealing from STAR and told Machado she began in December, Wagner wrote.
Cudney said she would “fix” the paperwork in the office and essentially “take the money out to put in her pocket,” the affidavit says.
STAR terminated her employment after discovering the suspected theft, Pacheco said.
Going Back Through The Books
The investigation didn't stop with Cudney's alleged admission.
Machado met with Pacheco again May 26 to collect STAR’s records and the results of an internal audit.
Those records broke the suspected cash losses into chunks.
STAR calculated $113 missing between June 26 and July 24, 2025, another $241 from July 24 through Aug. 28, $291 from Oct. 30 through Nov. 26, and $281 during the following four weeks.
The amounts continued: $394 from Dec. 23 through Jan. 29, $245 through Feb. 26, $364 through March 26, and another $125 through April 23.
Altogether, STAR estimated $2,054 in cash was taken.
And there was another problem.
Fuel.
Early Morning Fill-ups
STAR investigators also found discrepancies involving fuel cards intended to fill STAR Transit buses.
The suspicious purchases had two characteristics, Wagner wrote: When the fuel was purchased and how much was pumped.
Some transactions occurred earlier in the morning than STAR's drivers normally arrived for work, and the quantities were smaller than the amount of fuel STAR's buses ordinarily consume.
At 5:18 a.m. April 16, STAR records showed $48.08 in fuel purchased at the ALTA station on Foothill Boulevard.
Surveillance footage from a neighboring U-Haul allegedly showed a vehicle matching Cudney’s Volkswagen SUV at the pumps at the same time. Investigators later photographed Cudney’s SUV outside her home and reported it matched the vehicle in the footage.
The affidavit lists 26 transactions stretching from June 2025 through April 2026, generally occurring shortly before or shortly after 5 a.m.
They weren't enormous purchases. One was $19.04, another was $20.19. Others were $21.83, $22.49 and $25.41.
The largest listed in the affidavit was $49.32.
Together, they totaled $841.03.
Not Just $2,895
Pacheco doesn't contend that losing roughly $2,900 crippled STAR.
“It doesn’t affect our operation,” he said.
But STAR isn't a massive metropolitan transit authority, either, he added.
It is a relatively small Sweetwater County public-transportation operation whose current staff roster includes Pacheco, a bookkeeper, three dispatchers and roughly a dozen drivers.
STAR's buses serve all of Sweetwater County, including door-to-door rides and transportation between Rock Springs and Green River. Seniors 60 and older can ride free.
The operation also depends heavily on government support. Wyoming records show STAR received about $749,286 in transit grant funding reported for fiscal 2025.
STAR's own February 2025 budget discussion projected it would have to pull about $125,000 from reserves to make its fiscal 2026 budget work.
Funding remains an issue statewide. In June, Wyoming transit advocates asked the state Transportation Commission for a one-time bridge funding, warning that reductions could force providers to cut routes, hours and other services. That request specifically cited STAR survey data showing 87.7% of its riders reported feeling less lonely when using transit.
That's the context Pacheco says makes the alleged theft particularly disappointing.
“We help the elderly, the low income, and then the physically and intellectually disabled,” he said. “And it’s very disheartening to know that somebody would take away from those people, as well as the public, because everyone can use public transportation.”
'Do What's Right'
The financial loss wasn't the only thing STAR lost.
Cudney took with her 16 years of experience inside the organization when she was terminated, Pacheco said.
“It’s been difficult to lose a tenured employee like that who has a lot of institutional knowledge about our processes and what we do,” he said.
For Pacheco, that meant dealing with the situation from an unusual perspective for the head of a small transit organization.
Before STAR, he spent 31 years with the Rock Springs Police Department, eight as police chief. His law-enforcement background also includes graduating from the FBI National Academy.
“Now you can see why it wasn’t hard for me to take care of this once I figured it out,” he said.
Pacheco said STAR intends to seek restitution, but he said the organization's obligation went beyond recovering the money.
“You just have to do what’s right for STAR, for the taxpayers and for public transportation,” he said.
Demand For Speedy Trial
Cudney made her initial appearance Aug. 27 and was released on her own recognizance. The Sweetwater County Sheriff's Office roster confirms she was booked and released that day on the theft allegation.
Her attorney, Steven Anselmi-Stith, filed a demand for a speedy trial Sept. 1.
After her preliminary hearing, the case was bound over to District Court. It was filed there Sept. 24 before Third Judicial District Judge Suzannah Robinson.
If convicted of the charges, Cudney faces up to 10 years in prison, a $10,000 fine or both.
Kolby Fedore can be reached at kolby@cowboystatedaily.com.
