Date: March 14, 2025
Contact: newsroom@ci.irs.gov
ST. LOUIS — A former parish secretary and bookkeeper turned herself in Friday to face an accusation that she embezzled at least $400,000 from a DeSoto, Missouri church.
Corie M. Boyer of Jefferson County, Missouri, was indicted March 6 in U.S. District Court in St. Louis on four counts of wire fraud and two counts of money laundering. She pleaded not guilty in court Friday afternoon.
The indictment says Boyer was responsible for maintaining the parish's books and records, organizing certain parish fundraisers and assisting in the collection and counting of the weekly offertory. From at least January of 2017 through March of 2024, Boyer stole at least $400,000 in parish funds in multiple ways, the indictment says. She used parish funds to pay her personal credit card bills and used parish credit cards for personal expenses including airfare for herself and relatives, cruises, college tuition payments, shopping, taxes and rent, the indictment says. She also wrote checks to herself and stole cash from the offertory, and she covered up her thefts by falsifying parish records, the indictment says.
Wire fraud is punishable by up to 20 years in prison, a $250,000 fine or both. Money laundering is punishable by up to 10 years in prison and the same fine.
A charge set forth in an indictment is merely an accusation and does not constitute proof of guilt. Every defendant is presumed to be innocent unless and until proven guilty.
The IRS Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI) and FBI investigated the case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Jonathan Clow is prosecuting the case.
IRS-CI is the criminal investigative arm of the IRS, responsible for conducting financial crime investigations, including tax fraud, narcotics trafficking, money-laundering, public corruption, healthcare fraud, identity theft and more. IRS-CI special agents are the only federal law enforcement agents with investigative jurisdiction over violations of the Internal Revenue Code, obtaining a 90% federal conviction rate. The agency has 20 field offices located across the U.S. and 14 attaché posts abroad.