A former Rawlins police captain and former Carbon County commissioner -- accused in a previous federal civil lawsuit of sexually assaulting a teenage girl in the mid-1990s -- has gone missing after criminal charges were filed against him Friday, Carbon County Sheriff Jerry Colson said Tuesday.

"He's a fugitive, we haven't been able to get him," Colson said.

"We haven't been able to effect the arrest," he said.

Colson's office has placed Adam Lee Meacham's name in the FBI's National Crime Information Center database, he said.

Meacham is not in Carbon County, but Colson would not say whether he is still in Wyoming.

Colson does not believe Meacham is a threat to anyone, he said. "We don't consider him dangerous to the public or law enforcement."

The Carbon County Attorney's Office filed multiple felony and misdemeanor counts against the former police officer after an investigation by the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation, according to a news release from Deputy County Attorney Cal Rerucha.

However, Rerucha declined to comment on the nature of the charges because state law restricts disclosure about criminal charges involving sexual assault and crimes against minors. There is no statute of limitations on prosecuting sexual assaults in Wyoming.

Meacham has faced allegations of inappropriate behavior before.

In 2007, former Rawlins resident Stephanie Faber sued him and the city, claiming he sexually assaulted her when she was a teenager and that the city did not respond to her claims.

The Star-Tribune does not name victims of sex crimes unless they wish to go public. Faber did.

Last year, she and her attorney Fred Harrison agreed to go on the record about her experiences outlined in her federal lawsuit.

Harrison declined to comment on Tuesday.

The first assault occurred in 1996 when she was 15 and in Meacham's patrol car during a "ride-along" program set up by the Rawlins Police Department. Meacham assaulted her two other times at his home before she turned 18, according to court documents.

Faber's memories of the incidents came back when she was on an ambulance call in Florida to care for a 4-year-old girl who had been raped.

She attempted suicide after the memories returned.

Her family notified former Carbon County Attorney David Clark who in 2004 notified the Wyoming Attorney General's Office, which authorized a DCI investigation. Faber took a polygraph test indicating she was telling the truth, but the DCI report noted a handwriting analyst reviewed her personally written report and concluded she was "withholding information about her participation and perhaps her encouragement of his advances."

After receiving the report, special prosecutor Sheridan County Attorney Matt Redle said in April 2005 he would not prosecute the case.

In 2007, Faber sued Meacham and the city of Rawlins for covering up the events.

In June 2008, she reached a settlement agreement that called for Meacham to pay Faber $250,000, and a promise from the city to issue a statement that "a preventable event or incident occurred" and take steps to avoid a reoccurrence.

But attorneys for Rawlins and Meacham responded to the settlement claim saying they didn't need to make any apologies because no assaults happened.

Meanwhile, Faber went to work for a firm doing paramedic contract work in Iraq involving traumatic war wounds.

In an interview from southern Iraq in November 2008, Faber said the failures to acknowledge the wrongdoing revictimized her.

"I wanted someone to say, 'We're sorry,'" she said.

"It never was about money," Faber said. "It was so nobody else gets hurt again."

Reach Tom Morton at (307) 266-0592, or at tom.morton@trib.com. Read his blog at tribtown.trib.com/TomMorton/blog

Help out

If you have any information about the location of Adam Lee Meacham, please contact the Carbon County Sheriff's Office at (307) 324-2776.