A Cedar Hill, Texas man who anonymously sent a penis-shaped chocolate candy bar to a McLennan County Sheriff’s Office employee found himself jailed and now has a pending harassment case.
Well, at least he thought the shipment was anonymous.
Believing he was pranking a romantic rival, the gag turned out to be on Thomas Roy Gourneau, 43, who now is facing up to six months in jail and a $2,000 fine.
Gourneau’s attorney, Cody Cleveland, cannot believe the dispute between Gourneau and Tracy Chance ever reached the level of a criminal case and said he thinks the only reason it was pursued is because Chance works in law enforcement.
“I question whether if I or somebody not involved in law enforcement had called 911 and said we had a matter that needed to be investigated and told them I had received a chocolate candy bar in the shape of a penis, how long I would be sitting before they arrived at my office or my house to investigate that crime,” Cleveland said. “I wonder whether or not there would be any kind of follow-up as far as a warrant issued or an arrest made.
“I just think because this guy works for the sheriff’s office and it got delivered to him at the sheriff’s office that it was easy for him to walk across the hall and get a detective to look into the case. That’s the reason they went forward.”
Chance was a grant coordinator for the sheriff’s office before leaving that job to move out of Waco. He has since returned and now works as a jailer, McLennan County Sheriff’s Chief Deputy David Kilcrease said.
The case was not pursued simply because the candy was shaped like a chocolate dick, Kilcrease said. Gourneau dated Chance’s ex-wife, and the men have had a long history of animosity between them, including troubling emails from Gourneau to Chance.
The last straw
A district attorney’s office spokesman who reviewed the case said there appears to be a “long history of improper communication with the victim” and that sending the chocolate penis seems to have represented the last straw for Chance.
Gourneau sent the box with the chocolate male genitalia anonymously to Chance at the sheriff’s office in December 2017. After an investigation that included subpoenaing Gourneau’s bank and credit card records, Detective Michael Miller obtained an arrest warrant charging Gourneau with Class B misdemeanor harassment in August 2018. Gourneau was arrested in December 2018 and remains free after posting $2,500 bond.
The complaint against Gourneau said he “with intent to harass, annoy, alarm, abuse, torment, or embarrass” Chance initiated “communication with the complainant, and in the course of the communication, make an obscene comment or suggestion, namely the defendant mailed a package to Tracy Chance containing a message suggesting that he engage in fellatio.”
Sheriff’s office reports indicate that the property seized is “chocolate candy.”
Gourneau has turned down a plea deal and the offer of a “pretrial diversion program” in the case of the chocolate dick, so the two men are going to face each other in court.