A former officer with the Liberty County Development Authority pled not guilty in Liberty County Superior Court to charges against her.

A Liberty County grand jury has indicted former LCDA chief financial and chief operating officer Carmen Cole with four offenses, with charges on two counts of financial card transaction fraud, one count of theft by deception and one count of making a false statement. Cole pled not guilty at her arraignment Wednesday in front of Judge Paul Rose.

In an indictment handed down last month, Cole is accused of using a LCDA credit card to buy jewelry between January 1 and June 3, 2024, without authorization and permission and of using the card to get home improvement work done by a local roofing company between January 1 and March 1, 2024.

Cole also is charged with theft by deception between June 3, 2022 and June 3, 2024, using the LCDA credit card for personal purchases of at least $5,000 and posting the items as LCDA expenses. She also was indicted for one count of making a false statement after she was accused of entering credit purchases of her own as LCDA miscellaneous purchases between June 3, 2022 and June 5, 2024.

All four counts of the indictment are felonies.

Cole resigned her position at the LCDA in February 2025 after she acknowledged she used public funds for personal expenses. She reimbursed the LCDA for all the money spent on her behalf.

The LCDA also is having audits conducted on its finances, and the accounting firm Mauldin & Jenkins has finished one fiscal year. It is expected to present audits on fiscal years 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025 in the next few months.