She also used a Sage debit card to pay ordinary expenses, including mortgage payments and home renovation costs, the indictment said.
Sarah Lingle, who pleaded not guilty and is free on an unsecured $30,000 bond, didn’t respond to an email seeking comment. William Germany — Chris Lingle’s lawyer — declined an interview.
‘Mr. Lingle’s mistake’
Lingle started working at Sage in 2017 when she was known as Sarah Pardo. She was responsible for managing the firm’s financial matters, including paying bills and handling payroll. She had access to at least one of its bank accounts and a company credit card.
She misappropriated money from about 2018 through July 2022, her last month of employment, according to the indictment. She also is accused of initiating electronic transfers of funds from Sage’s accounts into her own account or business accounts she controlled.
She also would draft payroll checks to employees, forge their signatures and deposit the checks into an account she controlled, the indictment added.
In the midst of her employment at Sage, on Oct. 16, 2020, she and Chris Lingle wed.
He’d had his share of scrapes with the law. He was charged with prostitution in 1999 and theft of property under $20,000 and credit card abuse in 2001, among other charges, a court exhibit says.
Yet Germany — Chris Lingle’s lawyer — laid blame for his client’s current predicament on Sara Lingle, according to Scrivener.
“Mr. Germany … stood up in the prior (court) hearing … and said, ‘Mr. Lingle’s mistake was he married the wrong person,’” Scrivener said in court.
Within two months of Sarah Lingle’s departure from Sage in the summer of 2022, it sued her, her husband and her company, Aura Consulting LLC, for more than $1.6 million in damages. The complaint contained screengrabs of Facebook posts by Chris Lingle in 2022 while the couple was in the Cayman Islands. “So this is where you launder the dollars,” a caption with one post said. Another said, “This island has fun activities while you’re doing your laundry.” The posts are under the name “Chris Lingel.”
Scrivener referenced them in court.
“It’s not terribly subtle,” he said. “I’m not sure it’s subject to any interpretation but the obvious one.”
In the lawsuit, Sage said Chris Lingle is “liable for the conduct of Sarah Lingle, as he has conspired in the unlawful and fraudulent schemes to steal money” from the firm.
Sage obtained a temporary injunction to stop the Lingles from dissipating any of the allegedly stolen money. Not long after, a judge entered a default judgment for $418,817 against Chris Lingle after he failed to respond to the allegations.
Responses
In April, more than a year and a half after the judgment, he moved to set it aside and seek a new trial.
In his motion, Chris Lingle cast blame on his wife. He said he didn’t meet her until June 2019 — well after she started at Sage. Yet, he added, Sage accused him of “being a co-conspirator with his wife when the allegations accuse his wife of embezzling or unauthorized uses of debit cards beginning in January of 2018.” All of the proof in the default judgment relates to her alleged actions, he said.
“Mr. Lingle is not under indictment and does not appear to be a target or under investigation in relation to the crimes,” his filing added.
Sage responded that Chris Lingle waited too long to ask for a new trial. On May 7, state District Judge Laura Salinas issued an order denying his request to set aside the judgment.
Sarah Lingle finally answered the lawsuit by denying the allegations.
Sage responded by dismissing the lawsuit against her and Aura, her company, on May 20.
But she wasn’t in the clear. Two days later, Sage filed a new lawsuit against her and Aura containing essentially the same allegations made in the case it had just dismissed. Scrivener, citing legal strategy, declined to elaborate on his reasons for dismissing the claims and refiling them or why he never pursued a default judgment against her.
It’s possible Sage held off serving the complaint as it awaits the outcome of Sarah Lingle’s criminal case. If convicted, she could be ordered to make monetary restitution.
Chris Lingle gave notice on Aug. 9 that he would appeal the judgment and the final order disposing of the case. He has yet to file court papers outlining his arguments.
Fleeting divorce
Another twist was the couple’s short-lived divorce.
Sarah Lingle, without an attorney, sued her husband for divorce three days before Christmas. She said the two had ceased living together Nov. 17 and used boilerplate language that the marriage had become “insupportable because of discord or conflict of personalities.” The couple have no children.
Sarah Lingle expected she and her husband would enter into an agreement for the division of their marital estate.
Less than three weeks later, Sage filed a petition in intervention in the divorce.
“The reason we intervened is we were concerned that this was a sham to hide assets,” Scrivener, Sage’s attorney, said in court. It also was an attempt to collect on its judgment against Chris Lingle.
On May 2, now represented by counsel, Sarah Lingle filed a motion asking the court to strike Sage’s intervention. But that same day she also gave notice that she was dismissing the divorce “without prejudice,” meaning she can refile if she chooses.
Father’s estate
Chris Lingle’s father — Kenneth Lingle, a retired Army colonel — died on Nov. 22, five days after the couple stopped living together. He was 88.
In his will, executed in 1998, Kenneth Lingle directed that two-thirds of his estate should go to his daughter and to his son’s sister, Stephanie Anne Lingle. The remaining amount was set aside for a trust to distribute to Chris Lingle — who was then incarcerated at the state’s Sander Estes Unit in Venus.
Kenneth Lingle said the differing treatment of his two children related in part to his son’s “past criminal activity.”
Distributions to his son were dependent on him avoiding “further criminal conduct,” the will said. If he was convicted of criminal activity, the funds in the trust would immediately be payable to his sister.
Scrivener sent a May 28 letter to the attorney for Stephanie Lingle, executor of her father’s estate, informing him of her brother’s criminal past and the judgment Sage was seeking to collect from him.
“Notwithstanding that (Chris) was not criminally indicted for the theft of Sage’s money as his wife was, he has been convicted of several other crimes since the will’s execution,” Scrivener wrote. His letter cited a half dozen charges, including for prostitution, credit card abuse and theft of property of less than $20,000.
Chris Lingle, though, disclaimed any ownership interest in his father’s estate and assigned it to his sister. The disclaimer and transfer was dated March 28 — the same day as Scrivener’s letter — but it wasn’t filed with the Bexar County Probate Court until July 18.
Defamation suit
Chris Lingle wasn’t finished yet, though. About a month after signing the disclaimer, he sued Sage for defamation and violation of debt collection laws. He sought more than $1 million in damages.
The suit alleged the recording of an abstract of judgment, a summary of the judgment against him, in Bexar County property records caused him to be “debanked,” meaning his bank closed his accounts and returned his money. Three credit card companies also canceled his accounts.
“Going to county records and filing an abstract and telling the whole world you’re a judgment debtor and that you owe money — $418,000 — that you can go collect on it, I think that’s pretty egregious,” Germany, Chris Lingle’s lawyer, said at an Aug. 2 court hearing. The recording defamed him, the suit said.
It also accused Sage of using “fraudulent, deceptive and misleading misrepresentations in its effort to collect a debt for which (he) did not owe and does not owe.” And Sage’s intervention in the divorce case amounted to “harassment and abuse.”
Sage responded that its actions were in the context of litigation and protected by state law — the Texas Citizens Participation Act, also known as the anti-SLAPP law — that protects the First Amendment right to petition. SLAPP stands for strategic lawsuit against public participation.
“This all stems from a judicial proceeding … that Mr. Lingle voluntarily elected not to participate in,” Scrivener told state District Judge Norma Gonzales. “And now he wants to come in and complain about Sage exercising its rights.”
Scrivener argued at the Aug. 2 court hearing that Chris Lingle’s lawsuit should be dismissed and that he should pay attorneys’ fees and costs.
On Aug. 20, Gonzales granted Sage’s motion to dismiss and awarded it about $13,200 in fees.
Professor Elam 