She was hungry for money.
A Missouri charity boss swiped nearly $11 million meant for food-starved, low-income kids and blew it on lavish items such as mansions and a flashy yellow Mercedes for her boyfriend, prosecutors said Tuesday.
Connie Bobo, 46, who ran the New Heights Community Resource Center in Bridgeton, allegedly claimed she had spent $20 million of the federally allocated taxpayer money to feed the children between February 2019 to March 2022.
But she actually spent less than half of those “meal reimbursement” funds on food — instead plunking down big bucks on real estate and “luxury goods,” and giving her romantic partner $1.4 million, according to prosecutors.
“[She bought] a mansion for herself, houses for her family and a bright yellow Mercedes for her boyfriend,” Assistant US Attorney Jonathan Clow told jurors at her fraud trial Tuesday.
“As her lies were discovered, the defendant used forged documents to try and cover up her crimes,” he said, according to stltoday.com
In total, Bobo bought seven properties, including a nearly $1 million mansion for herself in St. Charles, according to her federal indictment, filed in October 2023.
She spent $2.2 million of money for the program, funded by the US Department of Agriculture, on a commercial real estate investment, prosecutors said.
During her spending spree, she also gave roughly $1.4 million to her boyfriend Howard Hughes III, who spent roughly $212,000 of the funds on a gleaming Mercedes-Benz G550 Wagon 4X4 Squared, according to the indictment.
To cover her tracks, Bobo named her family members and friends as New Heights board members on official documents without their knowledge, prosecutors said.
Her friend, Dacia Betts, testified Tuesday that she was stunned to learn she was listed as the non-profit’s vice-president after being contacted by FBI.
Bobo’s lawyer, meanwhile, argued that she didn’t mean to violate federal rules and tried to correct the problems before she was arrested.
“Every step that Ms. Bobo took was for the best interest of the community and an attempt to give back,” attorney Katryna Spearman told jurors in her opening statement in the fraud trial Tuesday.
Bobo was charged with three counts of wire fraud, aggravated identity theft and obstruction for allegedly falsifying food vendor invoices subpoenaed by a grand jury.
She faces 20 years behind bars.
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