FORMER PRESIDENT AND EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF NARAL PRO-CHOICE NY PLEADS GUILTY TO FALSIFYING BUSINESS RECORDS
Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance, Jr., today announced the guilty plea of KELLI CONLIN, 53, to one count of Falsifying Business Records in the First Degree, a class E felony.
CONLIN served as the Executive Director and President of NARAL Pro-Choice NY (NARAL) and the National Institute for Reproductive Health (NIRH), both non-profit entities located at 470 Park Avenue South in Manhattan from 1992 to 2010. During CONLIN’s tenure, NARAL became a leading advocate in the pro-choice and women’s health movements. The organizations’ Boards of Directors removed CONLIN as President and Executive Director in early 2011 after an internal audit revealed the spending and accounting improprieties that led to today’s disposition.
The investigation leading to today’s guilty plea revealed that beginning in 2007 until 2010, while working for NARAL and NIRH, CONLIN submitted credit card expenditure sheets and reimbursement check requests that contained false descriptions of her expenditures, seeking reimbursement for personal expenditures by claiming they were related to the business of the organizations. In particular, she claimed as business expenses personal meals, child care costs, car service expenses, and clothing purchases, as well as a summer rental house in the Hamptons. To conceal her conduct, CONLIN told her staff that certain expenditures were authorized by the Board. In fact, many of the expenditures were not Board-authorized, although because of the nature and duration of CONLIN’s conduct, an exact amount of loss to the non-profits is impossible to quantify.
“There is a special trust placed in the leadership of non-profit organizations,” said District Attorney Vance. “Kelli Conlin was a leader in the pro-choice movement and a powerful advocate for women, but she treated the organizations’ funds as her own, betraying the trust of the donors she solicited. When people contribute their hard-earned dollars to non-profit organizations, they should be assured that their funds will be expended only for appropriate purposes.”
CONLIN is expected to be sentenced to a non-incarceratory sentence and will be ordered to pay restitution to NARAL and NIRH in the amount of $75,000.
Assistant District Attorney Julieta Lozano led the investigation into this case, and Investigative Analyst Song Mee Yoon-Smith of the Major Economic Crimes Bureau, Rackets Investigator Jonathan Reid, and Investigator Sam Ahdout assisted in the investigation. Assistant District Attorneys Christopher Conroy and Richard Weber, Deputy Chief and Chief, respectively, of the Major Economic Crimes Bureau, supervised the investigation.
District Attorney Vance thanked NARAL and NIRH for their cooperation in the investigation.
Defendant Information:
KELLI CONLIN, 04/02/1958
Brooklyn, N.Y.
Convicted:
Falsifying Business Records, a class E felony, one count
CONLIN served as the Executive Director and President of NARAL Pro-Choice NY (NARAL) and the National Institute for Reproductive Health (NIRH), both non-profit entities located at 470 Park Avenue South in Manhattan from 1992 to 2010. During CONLIN’s tenure, NARAL became a leading advocate in the pro-choice and women’s health movements. The organizations’ Boards of Directors removed CONLIN as President and Executive Director in early 2011 after an internal audit revealed the spending and accounting improprieties that led to today’s disposition.
The investigation leading to today’s guilty plea revealed that beginning in 2007 until 2010, while working for NARAL and NIRH, CONLIN submitted credit card expenditure sheets and reimbursement check requests that contained false descriptions of her expenditures, seeking reimbursement for personal expenditures by claiming they were related to the business of the organizations. In particular, she claimed as business expenses personal meals, child care costs, car service expenses, and clothing purchases, as well as a summer rental house in the Hamptons. To conceal her conduct, CONLIN told her staff that certain expenditures were authorized by the Board. In fact, many of the expenditures were not Board-authorized, although because of the nature and duration of CONLIN’s conduct, an exact amount of loss to the non-profits is impossible to quantify.
“There is a special trust placed in the leadership of non-profit organizations,” said District Attorney Vance. “Kelli Conlin was a leader in the pro-choice movement and a powerful advocate for women, but she treated the organizations’ funds as her own, betraying the trust of the donors she solicited. When people contribute their hard-earned dollars to non-profit organizations, they should be assured that their funds will be expended only for appropriate purposes.”
CONLIN is expected to be sentenced to a non-incarceratory sentence and will be ordered to pay restitution to NARAL and NIRH in the amount of $75,000.
Assistant District Attorney Julieta Lozano led the investigation into this case, and Investigative Analyst Song Mee Yoon-Smith of the Major Economic Crimes Bureau, Rackets Investigator Jonathan Reid, and Investigator Sam Ahdout assisted in the investigation. Assistant District Attorneys Christopher Conroy and Richard Weber, Deputy Chief and Chief, respectively, of the Major Economic Crimes Bureau, supervised the investigation.
District Attorney Vance thanked NARAL and NIRH for their cooperation in the investigation.
Defendant Information:
KELLI CONLIN, 04/02/1958
Brooklyn, N.Y.
Convicted:
Falsifying Business Records, a class E felony, one count
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