The office manager and bookkeeper for nonprofit CENTRO San Antonio, Alicia Henderson, was sentenced to 33 months in prison for embezzlement and tax fraud. CENTRO San Antonio connects private developers with local government to improve downtown San Antonio.
From 2014 to 2017 Henderson wrote 118 checks to herself from the organization’s bank account and deposited the funds into her personal account. The embezzlement included an elaborate, fake audit to cover up the theft, along with fabricated emails and websites and at least one other person she paid to impersonate an auditor. She stole $291,385.23 and failed to report any of the funds on her tax returns.
Had the non-profit done a background check before hiring Henderson they would have discovered that in 1997 she pleaded guilty to felony bank fraud and was sentenced to one month in prison, five years of supervised release and ordered to pay $133,614 in restitution.
In addition to the prison sentence, Henderson was ordered to pay $356,104.23 to CENTRO San Antonio and $64,719 to the IRS.
