Dallas nonprofit’s ex-CFO sentenced to 5 years in prison: Trial Balance
The Trial Balance is CFO.com’s weekly preview of stories, stats and events to help you prepare.
Part 1: A Texas nonprofit’s former finance chief gets prison time after writing more than 200 fraudulent checks.
The former CFO of a Dallas-based mental health nonprofit who admitted to stealing more than $2.1 million from the organization will spend five years behind bars in federal prison.
Jeffrey Scott Keehn received the sentence from U.S. District Judge Ed Kinkeade on Wednesday. Kinkeade also sentenced Keehn to three years of supervised release and ordered the former finance chief to repay $2.1 million to his former employer, the Child and Family Guidance Center.
In a news release issued Friday, Ryan Raybould, U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Texas, said that Keehn’s actions drained the nonprofit’s finances and forced it to “divert time and resources” away from its mission.
According to an August 2024 indictment, Keehn forged the signatures of the nonprofit’s CEO and chief operating officer on checks written to himself. The checks came from the nonprofit’s bank account, which required the signatures of at least two authorized signers for any transaction of $1,500 or more. Keehn was not an authorized signer, per court documents.
The indictment goes on to say that Keehn deposited 233 fraudulent checks from the organization into one of his bank accounts. Those checks totaled a little over $1.9 million. Keehn also deposited more than a half dozen checks into another account he controlled at a different financial institution, the document said.
The organization also required signatures of its president or treasurer for transactions of $10,000 or more, but Keehn wrote all of the checks for under that amount to avoid having to obtain such approval.
Keehn concealed his fraud by recording the checks in QuickBooks as payments to legitimate payees and misrepresenting the organization’s available cash, according to the indictment.
The indictment said Keehn carried out the fraud from September 2016 through January 2023.
Raybould’s Friday news release noted that the government has seized about $800,000 in assets from Keehn in the course of an investigation and forfeiture proceedings. That includes a vehicle, precious metals and Keehn’s interest in a California condo.
Keehn has already pleaded guilty to wire fraud. Joseph Magliolo, an attorney with Jackson Walker LLP who represented Keehn, said he had no comment on the sentencing on Monday morning. The Child and Family Guidance Center didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment submitted Monday morning.
At the sentencing hearing, two representatives from the center spoke of the “significant operational burden the fraud imposed, including extensive forensic audits and the challenge of rebuilding after years of concealed losses,” according to Raybould’s news release. The pair said the center had a mission to provide mental health services “to the indigent population,” the release said.
Part 2 — This week
Here’s a list of important U.S. market events slated for the week ahead.
Monday, Aug. 31 — None scheduled
Tuesday, Sept. 1
Wednesday, Sept. 2
Thursday, Sept. 3
Friday, Sept. 4
Part 3 — Quote of the week
“I learned that you raise money when you can, and you don’t always raise money when you want. That’s something I took with me. That SPAC is what has enabled us to be here today, having a company that just printed its best quarter ever.”
Guy Zeltser
CFO, Hippo Insurance
In a recent Q&A, Hippo Insurance’s CFO Guy Zeltser discusses what he learned from the company’s 2021 SPAC listing, how he approaches the insurance business in a rapidly changing world and the lessons learned from his time at a major consultancy.
