Purse Ho
The former chief financial officer of a West Virginia children’s charity was ordered to pay back $4.7million she stole from the charity and used to buy a fleet of planes, a house on the waterfront of the lake and a Corvette.
Ruth Marie Phillips, 69, pleaded guilty in September 2021 and was sentenced to seven years in prison in January for the scheme in which she funneled River Valley Child Development Services money into an aviation business she ran to the side and into his own pockets. .
Prosecutors said Phillips worked for the charity, which provides childcare and food programs throughout West Virginia funded primarily by government grants, dating back to 1986. She eventually became the the charity’s business and finance director and began stealing the money in 2013 until she was fired in 2020.
Meanwhile, prosecutors said Phillips paid $1.14 million into his own personal checking account and $3.4 million into the bank account of Attitude Aviation, a small aircraft charter company and of aviation services it owned and operated at airports in Ohio and Huntington, West Virginia.
In one year, Phillips siphoned off nearly 16% of the $7.1 million in grants the nonprofit organization received, prosecutors said.
“Phillips has done great harm to the children and families she should have supported,” said Will Thompson, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of West Virginia. “I commend our law enforcement partners and my staff for their pursuit of justice in this matter.”
Phillips’ attorney did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment. In a court filing, Phillips admitted she stole an exorbitant amount of money, but said she did it primarily to support her partner and son’s aviation business.
She also said she struggled with alcohol addiction for years after her husband – a Vietnam veteran who suffered from PTSD – took his own life in the late 1990s.
Prosecutors said as part of Phillips’ restitution deal, she agreed to forfeit $602,000 from the sale of six planes, $305,000 from the sale of her home in Smith Mountain Lake in Virginia and $170,000 $ from the sale of a house in West Virginia and another. in Chesapeake, Ohio. She was also ordered to give up her Lexus RX and Chevrolet Corvette.
In court papers, prosecutors say the ‘reprehensible’ theft prevented families from receiving the help they would have received had the money not been stolen and resulted in some employees losing their jobs from the Association.
“Her crime demonstrates a lack of empathy, as well as a cold will to take advantage of others when they were vulnerable and dependent on her,” prosecutors said in court documents.
A message left with officials at River Valley Child Development Services was not immediately returned.