NEW YORK – The former longtime head of a New York State pro-choice organization has admitted to using the group's funds to pay for personal perks, including a vacation home and designer clothes, Manhattan prosecutors said on Wednesday.
Kelli Conlin, 53, the former chief executive of NARAL, the New York affiliate of the national abortion rights group Pro-Choice America, pleaded guilty to one felony count of falsifying business records, Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance said in a statement.
She was the non-profit group's executive director from 1992 to 2010, and was removed after an internal audit uncovered her unauthorized expenditure of group funds, the statement said.
"We are pleased with this outcome and to have a final resolution in this case," Donna Bascom, chair of NARAL Pro-Choice New York said in a statement.
Conlin also headed the National Institute for Reproductive Health, which is tied to NARAL.
She faces $75,000 in restitution, but likely no prison time, prosecutors said.
Prosecutors said that from 2007 to 2010, Conlin billed the non-profit for personal expenses such as car service charges, meals, childcare and a rental house in the fashionable Hamptons, the Long Island beach spot where many wealthy New Yorkers spend their summer weekends.
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