CEO Of Syracuse Charity Sentenced To Prison For Stealing Over $650,000 Meant For Disabled Children

A Syracuse-based charity’s former executive, Shirley Goddard, has been sentenced to one to three years in prison and ordered to repay $610,000 for stealing $650,000 from the charity she founded and led for over 25 years. The stolen funds were intended for outpatient and community-based services for developmentally disabled individuals and their families, and were provided by Medicaid. Goddard used over half of the money for personal expenditures, including shopping and gambling, which was evident through her ATM withdrawals and debit card purchases at casinos and a local mall. She admitted to the theft and pleaded guilty to taking the money over a period of four years. The state Attorney General’s Office, led by Letitia James, called it an exploitation of the Medicaid program and expressed their intention to prevent the Goddards from holding any fiduciary position in another New York nonprofit through a pending civil lawsuit. According to the lawsuit, Goddard’s husband, Tyrone, was aware of the embezzlement and helped her conceal it. The couple initially claimed the missing funds were due to bank errors, but their lies were eventually uncovered in May 2018. The recovered money will be returned to H.O.M.E. to continue its mission with a new executive director.

“For years, Shirley Goddard exploited our state’s Medicaid program and stole hundreds of thousands of dollars that were supposed to help some of our state’s most vulnerable residents,” Attorney General Letitia James said in the news release. (Source: Syracuse.com)

Shirley Goddard Judgement

• State Attorney General’s Office has announced that Shirley Goddard, a 76-year-old who was previously an executive at a Syracuse charity, has been given a prison sentence for stealing $650,000 from the organization she and her husband established and operated for more than 25 years
• As part of the sentence, she must also pay back the remaining $610,000 she stole.

Shirley Goddard has been sentenced for stealing from H.O.M.E., a Syracuse-based not-for-profit organization where she was President and CEO for over 25 years. The organization, which received funding from Medicaid to provide services to developmentally disabled individuals, was defrauded by Goddard from 2014 to 2018. The Attorney General’s Office has ordered Goddard to pay back the stolen amount in addition to serving prison time. She had previously paid $40,000 in restitution and has now been ordered to pay the remaining $610,809. In March, she pled guilty to embezzlement and agreed to return the funds to the Office of the Attorney General’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit. The unit has launched a criminal and civil investigation against Shirley and her husband, Tyrone, seeking to recover stolen charitable assets and ban them from holding any fiduciary roles in New York. The case was led by MFCU in collaboration with the Charities Bureau and was supervised by several individuals within the Attorney General’s Office. The public is encouraged to report any incidents of Medicaid fraud or nursing home abuse through the OAG website or hotline. MFCU receives funding from both federal and state sources and regularly returns more than it receives in recoveries from law enforcement actions.