A former Obama administration spokesperson who earned nearly $200,000 a year as Minneapolis's top communications staffer now faces a felony charge after prosecutors say he stole a coworker's debit card to buy an herbal supplement at a local smoke shop.

Adam Fetcher, 42, was formally charged Wednesday with one count of financial transaction fraud, a felony, after an investigation found he allegedly took cash and bank cards from three fellow city employees, Fox News Digital reported. The Minneapolis Star Tribune first reported the charge. Fetcher is scheduled to appear in court August 11.

The charge caps a swift fall for a political operative who built a résumé across the Obama White House, two federal agencies, and blue-chip corporate brands, only to be fired from his city hall post and accused of rifling through coworkers' desks and bags for spending money.

A $200,000 city job ended with a police investigation

Fetcher held the title of chief communications officer for the City of Minneapolis, drawing a salary of nearly $200,000 a year, according to city records. The city fired him in early July during an active police investigation into the alleged thefts.

Minneapolis police submitted a case file to the Hennepin County Attorney's Office for potential felony criminal charges related to fraudulent credit card use, Breitbart reported. The office ultimately moved forward with the single felony count.

Prosecutors allege Fetcher stole a coworker's debit card and used it to purchase kratom, an herbal supplement commonly used to treat opioid withdrawal symptoms, at a Minneapolis smoke shop. The purchases totaled hundreds of dollars across smoke shop visits, though the exact figure has not been disclosed.

An earlier Fox News report provided a more specific figure: Fetcher allegedly made a $481 kratom purchase at one Minneapolis smoke shop using a stolen charge card. That report identified the store as Minneapolis Tobacco & Vapor, where store manager Hamza Zamara told Fox News:

"We told him, Hey, we know what you're doing."

City Operations Officer Margaret Anderson Kelliher addressed the situation internally, telling staff: "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."

Fetcher had no criminal record at the time of the alleged fraud, save for a few traffic violations, according to court records.

Substance abuse and a rehabilitation stint preceded the alleged thefts

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. He is suspected of stealing cash and cards from coworkers' desks and bags shortly after returning from a rehabilitation program, those sources said.

Kratom, the substance Fetcher allegedly purchased with a stolen card, is sold legally in many states and is often marketed as a tool for managing opioid withdrawal. The connection between the alleged thefts and Fetcher's disclosed substance abuse problem has not been formally confirmed by prosecutors.

His attorney told Fox News Digital she had no comment on the charge. Fox News Digital reached a representative for former President Barack Obama on Thursday for comment but did not receive a response.

The case is one of several involving criminal misconduct allegations against former Obama administration figures that have drawn renewed public attention.

From the Obama White House to a felony docket

Fetcher's political career began in the Obama administration, where he served as assistant press secretary at the Department of Homeland Security for roughly eight months in 2011. He moved to the Department of the Interior as press secretary, serving there until July 2012, when he left to become deputy national press secretary on Obama's re-election campaign.

After the campaign, Fetcher moved into the private sector, holding high-level communications posts at Patagonia and Lyft before landing the Minneapolis city hall job. At nearly $200,000 a year, the position made him one of the better-compensated municipal communications officials in the country.

The trajectory, from federal press operations to corporate boardrooms to a city government desk where coworkers' wallets allegedly weren't safe, raises a straightforward question about the vetting and oversight Minneapolis applied to its senior hires. A man earning close to $200,000 annually stands accused of stealing hundreds of dollars from the people sitting next to him.

Broader questions about accountability inside Minneapolis city government are not new. Mayor Jacob Frey has faced scrutiny over fraud concerns tied to city operations, and former U.S. Attorney Joe Teirab has publicly stated that Frey should have to answer for the pattern of problems on his watch. The Fetcher charge adds another layer to that political pressure.

Minneapolis faces a growing credibility problem

The felony charge against Fetcher lands at a difficult moment for Minneapolis leadership. The city has already been dealing with widespread fraud scrutiny tied to members of its Somali community, a constituency with which Mayor Frey has cultivated close political ties, the New York Post noted. The Fetcher case is a separate matter, but it compounds a broader picture of a city government struggling to keep its own house clean.

Fetcher's firing and prosecution also highlight a pattern that extends well beyond Minneapolis. When government officials face criminal allegations, the public rightly asks whether the institutions that hired and supervised them exercised basic due diligence. In this case, a man with no criminal history and a polished résumé allegedly began stealing from colleagues almost immediately after returning from rehab, and it took coworkers and a smoke shop manager, not management, to flag the problem.

Recent months have seen a string of cases involving government officials facing misconduct allegations at both the federal and local level, reinforcing public skepticism about the accountability structures inside government institutions.

Several open questions remain. Prosecutors have not disclosed the exact dollar amounts stolen from each of the three alleged victims. The specific court handling the case and the docket number have not been made public. And it remains unclear whether the three coworkers referenced as victims are the same individuals involved in the debit card charge or represent separate alleged incidents.

Fetcher's August 11 court appearance will be the next public checkpoint in a case that has already cost him his career. Whether it costs Minneapolis leadership anything remains to be seen, but legal proceedings involving political figures have a way of surfacing uncomfortable questions about who knew what, and when.

A city that can't keep its own senior staff from allegedly picking their coworkers' pockets probably shouldn't lecture anyone else about good governance.