Employee stole nearly $200,000 from East St. Louis charity. Now she’s headed to prison.

(This article has been updated with the correct prison sentence.)

A St. Louis woman on Monday was sentenced to 45 months in a federal prison for stealing nearly $200,000 from an East St. Louis charity.

Kenesha Burlison, 40, worked as the director of human relations for Call for Help, Inc. from 2016 until she was fired in 2020 amid charges of theft.

Call for Help was founded in 1970 as a suicide prevention program, but has expanded to assist people dealing with a range of crises.

Burlison pleaded guilty in the U.S. Court of the Southern District of Illinois to fraudulently obtaining a cashier’s check from Call for Help Inc. in the amount of $69,788.62, which she used as a down payment on a house, according to court records.

She told Call for Help that her own bank had closed and that she needed a cashier’s check to give to the title company. In exchange, she wrote personal checks to reimburse Call for Help, but they bounced due to insufficient funds.

Then, after she was fired, Call for Help discovered that Burlison collected more than $115,000 in reimbursements for mileage and trainings that she did not attend, the federal complain states.

“Nonprofits elect a board of directors to provide oversight regarding fiduciary, legal and ethical responsibilities for the organization,” said FBI Springfield Field Office Special Agent in Charge David Nanz. “In this case, Call for Help’s board of directors did exactly what they were put in place to do. Their oversight enabled the FBI to pursue an investigation into the criminal actions of Kenesha Burlison and prevent further harm to the organization’s reputation and financial resources.”

Burlison also was sentenced on a 2020 aggravated identity theft conviction.

According to court records, Burlison submitted an inflated income verification as part of an application for a home mortgage. Because the verification required a signature on behalf of Call for Help, Burlison forged the signature of the organization’s director of quality assurance.

Aggravated identity theft carries a mandatory sentence of two years in prison, which must run consecutive to any other sentence imposed. She also was ordered to pay more than $185,000 in restitution to Call for Help, a $200 special assessment and to serve three years of supervised release following her prison term.

Assistant United States Attorney Zoe J. Gross prosecuted the case.

This story was originally published September 19, 2022 at 12:26 PM.