Ballwin Bookkeeper Sentenced to 1 Year in Prison

Sherri Berry of Ballwin received a prison sentence of one year and a day for forging checks from her employer where she worked as a bookkeeper, the U.S. Department of Justice announced Thursday.

The indictment against Berry, 50, said that between 2004 and 2007, she was working as a bookkeeper for Pernikoff Construction in St. Louis, where she fraudulently wrote 144 checks from the bank account of her employer to a personal credit card account, sometimes forging a company vice president's signature. The transactions totaled $379,500.

"She used the stolen money to pay for a variety of personal expenditures including her children's private school tuition, travel, car payments, and interest on her credit card accounts," a media statement from the U.S. Department of Justice said.

Berry pled guilty in U.S. District Court in St. Louis in May to one count of bank fraud and one count of felony tax evasion. In addition to the conviction's one-year sentence, Berry owes restitution worth $328,226.

Kevin Jimerson of St. Louis' IRS Criminal Investigation Field Office reminded the trial's observers about a common mistake of fraudulently-earned finances.

"No matter what the source of income, all income is taxable," Jimerson said in a written statement.