State investigators allege Michael Paschall stole $400,000 from Rural Deltana Volunteer Fire Department
The former chief of a Delta Junction-area volunteer fire department has been indicted on felony charges related to the alleged theft of some $400,000. The loss of funds forced the Rural Deltana Volunteer Fire Department to suspend operations last year.
A Fairbanks grand jury last month indicted 62-year-old Michael Paschall with two counts of first-degree theft and one count of falsifying business records. According to a news release issued last Friday by the state Department of Law, Paschall also is charged with scheming to defraud, evidence tampering and misapplication of property.
Rural Deltana board chair Dave Neuberger told KUAC early last year that board members contacted Alaska State Troopers after discovering what he called “accounting discrepancies.”
“Once we discovered this serious breach of trust, we took immediate action to address the situation,” Neuberger said.
Paschall had for years served as chief of Rural Deltana, which provides fire protection to areas outside of Delta Junction. And he held the secretary’s seat on its board of directors. But the board fired him in January 2024 and removed him from his seat after an audit showed that 400-hundred-thousand dollars had been stolen from the department over the preceding seven years.
Board treasurer Nelson Grier said board members also discovered that Paschall had for years failed to pay for the department’s insurance policy.
“We did not have insurance for a substantial amount of time, maybe up to four years,” Grier said. “It lapsed, and he kept saying it was being paid. And that is just devastating.”
Grier said in an interview Tuesday that board members couldn’t get any other insurance company to cover the department, so they shut it down and locked all its equipment in its two fire stations north and east of Delta Junction. Soon thereafter, the board worked out a deal with the City of Delta to allow Rural Deltana volunteers to train with the city’s volunteers and cover their insurance while responding to a fire. The city also agreed to lease Rural Deltana fire trucks.
“So we have kind of teamed with the city,” he said. “The City of Delta has done a very good job in helping our firefighters get under their insurance policy … They’re our volunteer firefighters, but they came under the city umbrella for responses.”
Paschall left Alaska in January 2024 and is now living in North Carolina. During a telephone interview on Tuesday, he declined to talk much about his indictment, saying only that he’s “cooperating with authorities.”
State investigators say Paschall falsified records to hide the $400,000 theft and that he took the department’s laptop with him when he left the state.
A spokesperson for the state Law Department said in an email Thursday that the case was assigned the Alaska Bureau of Investigations and that it was also investigated by the Alaska State Troopers’ Financial Crimes Unit. The case is being prosecuted by the Law Department’s Office of Special Prosecutions.
Paschall is scheduled to be arraigned Wednesday in a hearing to be held at the Rabinowitz Courthouse in Fairbanks before Superior Court Judge Thomas Temple.
