The CEO of the Iowa chapter of the Make A Wish Foundation has recently admitted to embezzling $41,000 from the critically ill children’s charity.
In what is possibly one of the most disappointing headlines to come out of 2021, the president of the Iowa chapter of the Make A Wish Foundation has come clean to cooking the books and pocketing almost $41,000 from the charity for critically ill children.
We’ve all seen the work that the Make A Wish Foundation does — whether it be providing a backstage queue-free tour through Disneyland, or organising a meetup with John Cena, Make a Wish is an exemplar of just how generous and lovely charity can be at its height.
You’d have to be pretty wicked to redirect these critical funds into your own bank account right? Well, it turns out that late-stage capitalism is just as good at creating villains as it is at creating Amazon packing factories.
Jennifer Woodley, Iowa’s Make a Wish Foundation CEO, had been fudging numbers since her first day in 2019 and was immediately fired after an internal review uncovered her theft. Following this, a criminal investigation was also launched, the result of which found her pleading guilty to two counts of theft and one count of fraud during her stint at the charity — admitting that these crimes were performed entirely intentionally.
But it was where the money was misappropriated that really elevates her to the level of a real-life Disney villain. Not only did she make unauthorised purchases with the foundation’s credit card — a mistake that could potentially be excused as accidental — but she also used the funds to supply herself with an approved bonus cheque and an increase on her $140k salary.
She shifted around foundation records to ensure that these amounts would go under the radar, and it’s honestly looking pretty bad for the ex-CEO, now that her crimes have been uncovered.
Woodley is potentially looking at 10 years in prison and thousands of dollars in fines.
