SAN FRANCISCO, CA — A former CEO is being accused of embezzling more than a million dollars from a San Francisco-based homelessness nonprofit.
Gwendolyn Westbrook, 71, was charged this week with nine felonies: four counts of filing false California tax returns, three counts of grand theft and one count each of misappropriation of public funds and presenting a false invoice for payment, according to the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office.
Prosecutors say that between 2019 and 2023, while serving as the CEO of United Council for Human Services, Westbrook stole $91,000 and misappropriated another $1.2 million in public funds into her own bank account. She also filed false tax returns between 2020 and 2023, authorities said.:
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In the court documents filed this month, Westbrook is accused of buying luxury vehicles and making purchases at high-end retailers like Louis Vuitton and Neiman Marcus with the nonprofit’s money. She led the organization, which ran a soup kitchen and collected millions in city contracts to shelter the homeless, for nearly two decades before her dismissal in 2023.
“Gwendolyn Westbrook enriched herself and misappropriated millions of dollars in public funding meant to benefit the community,” City Attorney David Chiu said, according to KQED. Chiu’s office tipped off the district attorney and the FBI to allegations of financial mismanagement at UCHS in 2022.
The San Francisco Chronicle reported that the charges are the latest in a long history of trouble for Westbrook and the United Council of Human Services. She was accused in 1997 of stealing thousands of dollars from a cash box at a parking lot owned by the San Francisco Port, her employer at the time. In 2015, regulators found unsanctioned blackjack tables in the back of a charity bingo hall that the nonprofit operated, the Chronicle reported.
AP News contributed to this report.