A former Chattanooga city employee accused of faking breast cancer and scamming co-workers was arrested Thursday afternoon on charges of theft and fraud.

Keele Maynor, 38, was arrested in Union City, Ga., after a nine-count indictment issued against her was released Thursday morning, said Chattanooga Police Department spokeswoman Sgt. Jerri Weary.

Chattanooga police and the city auditor’s office had been investigating Ms. Maynor since mid-December after she quit her job as an administrative assistant with the Department of Land Use Development.

Chattanooga police currently are working on extradition papers for Ms. Maynor. The indictment was not available late Thursday afternoon.

The city did not immediately have a comment after Ms. Maynor’s arrest, said Richard Beeland, Mayor Ron Littlefield’s spokesman.

Union City police said they could not comment other than to say officers served a valid warrant and arrested Ms. Maynor in their city, about 15 minutes south of Atlanta.

Chattanooga officials, as well as local non-profit organizations, had been checking records to determine if Ms. Maynor fraudulently received funds or services from them.

The city determined Ms. Maynor was paid more than $10,000 — money she otherwise would not have received — after other city employees started donating personal days to her in August 2003, according to her personnel file. Her coworkers believed she needed the time off to cope with her disease, the file states.

In her resignation letter, Ms. Maynor said she had been “untruthful” with city employees. In an e-mail to her supervisor obtained by the Chattanooga Times Free Press, Ms. Maynor said she was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2000 and was cleared after radiation in 2001. She said she started fabricating the story that she still had cancer in 2003 “and it has snowballed and finally came to a head,” according to the e-mail.

During the next five years, she was paid more than $10,000 for more than 1,550 hours that she did not work.

Members of the breast cancer community said they do not wish any harm upon Ms. Maynor and hope she gets the help she needs, said Jackie Stephenson, a local breast cancer survivor. But they also hope that any charges levied against her might deter people from deceiving others.

“We want to see that justice is done and that she gets the support that she needs,” Ms. Stephenson said. “I just think that we’re trying to put it behind us as much as possible.”