The former finance director at a West Virginia children’s charity had been ordered to pay back $4.7 million she stole from the nonprofit and used to buy a fleet of airplanes, a lakeshore house 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 steered the money from River Valley Child Development Services into an aviation business she ran on the side and into her own pockets. In one year, Phillips siphoned off nearly 16% of the $7.1 million in grants the nonprofit received, prosecutors said.
She also said she had battled alcohol addiction for years after her husband — a Vietnam veteran who suffered from PTSD — committed suicide in the late 1990s.