ST. LOUIS – A woman faces federal charges after she allegedly stole around $690,000 from a St. Louis County charity that serves adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

Joelle Fouse, 57, was indicted last week on three felony counts of wire fraud. She is expected to plead not guilty to charges on Tuesday, according to a news release from the U.S. Department of Justice.

Fouse formerly served as the director of finance and human resources for the charity from October 2012 through December 2023. She is accused of stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars over the course of a decade and was terminated from her role late last year.

A federal indictment says that Fouse was responsible for payroll, expense reimbursement and maintaining the charity’s books and records.

The indictment alleges she stole from the charity in three separate ways…

• Fouse allegedly provided false information to a third-party payroll processing company that caused the company to make 71 unauthorized payments totaling $139,810 to multiple bank accounts controlled by Fouse.
• Fouse is also accused of triggering 181 unauthorized expense payments into bank accounts she controlled, totaling $407,186.
• Fouse reportedly used her company credit card to make184 unauthorized purchases totaling $133,210.

Investigators say the charity also overpaid the employer portion of payroll taxes by about $10,694 due to the inflated payroll. The charity’s total reported losses were around $690,000.

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According to the indictment, Fouse took cash out of ATMs and used the charity’s funds for travel, clothing, entertainment, restaurant meals, rent payments and day-to-day expenses for herself and relatives. She allegedly tried to cover up her crimes by making false entries in financial and accounting records.

Other charity officials contacted the FBI after suspicions. Investigators did not disclose the name of the affected St. Louis County charity.

If convicted, Fouse faces up to 20 years in prison and up to $250,000 in fines for each wire fraud charge.

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