Facing a trial on felony charges of identity and credit card theft--and just two months removed from serving 40 days in an Iowa jail for a separate case--, former Dallas politico Adrain Noe turned up last week as a volunteer election worker in Linn County, Iowa. 

Once local officials realized who they were dealing with, they asked him to kindly leave. 

“It was brought to my attention that he had been charged with some crimes,” said a Linn County Auditor Joel Miller in an interview with The Gazette in Cedar Rapids. “I decided that it probably wasn't appropriate for him to work on the election.”

Oh. That must have been a tough call. 

Before Adrain Noe ran afoul of the law in Iowa, he scammed a series of clients and friends in Dallas, his one-time colleagues tell us. Harriet Miller, a former Democratic candidate for state House, says that Noe stole her credit cards while working on her campaign. She says he racked up thousands of dollars in charges.

“He appeared — and I stress the word ‘appeared’ — to be very capable and trustworthy,” Miller told Texas Watchdog. “Someone like Adrain is the most dangerous kind of criminal precisely because he engenders so much trust.”

Trent Hagler, a Dallas Realtor and Democratic donor, says that when Noe made off with his credit card, he didn't exactly cover his tracks. In fact, Noe signed his own name when using Hagler's plastic. 

Noe wound up in Iowa after another client of his, Pete Schulte, contacted the police with his own tale of treachery. Schulte says that Noe stole his credit card as well and used it to pay for a massage at a high-priced salon, among other unauthorized purchases. Within two months of landing a job working for a Republican candidate for the Iowa state House, Noe was arrested at a Des Moines hotel for credit card and identity theft. According to police, he confessed to a range of serious crimes, while his wife suggested that he purchased several items for his office with stolen credit cards. She then told detectives she was off to Texas.

Adrain Noe is probably not a guy you want working an election. But Miller says that Noe never had access to sensitive voter information and merely worked as a "greeter."  Somehow, that seems like too tough a job for him.