The former finance director of a St. Louis charity will spend more than three years in prison for stealing about $700,000 from her former employer.

U.S. District Judge Rodney Sippel handed out the 40-month sentence to Joelle Fouse on Thursday. She will also have to pay back the money she stole.

For more than a decade, Fouse, 58 , worked for Promise Community Homes, which provides housing to adults with intellectual disabilities. Over that period, she diverted money to personal expenses, like vacations and clothes, then falsified records to cover up the theft. Federal prosecutors also discovered that she had lied about having an accounting degree.

The theft, Assistant U.S. Attorney Hal Goldsmith wrote in a sentencing memo, deprived the residents of resources they needed, and was in add

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