A Vestal woman who admitted stealing $50,000 from the funeral home she worked at was sentenced two to six years in prison this morning in Broome County Court. Helen Eickhoff admitted in August that she stole from the checking account of the Ernest Parsons Funeral Home in Binghamton, where she was employed as a funeral director. The thefts took place from September 2007 through June 2010. Prosecutors said a condition of the plea deal was that Eickhoff must also pay $145,778.91 in restitution. If a substantial amount of the restitution was paid by the time of sentencing, Judge Martin E. Smith was free to consider a lesser sentence of probation.
The funeral home’s funds were stolen for Eickhoff’s personal use for an unidentified third party, according to prosecutors. An investigation began in June 2010, after the thefts were reported to law enforcement officials. Prosecutors said “a significant amount of documents relating to the case” had to be analyzed before bringing criminal charges, which were filed in March 2013. Eickhoff was then fired from her job at the funeral home, court papers said. During the investigation, authorities found paperwork related to the illegal purchases, such as a Christmas gift list, in her office, according to court papers, which did not provide further details of the thefts. Eickhoff was accused of making false entries in the funeral home’s check register on multiple dates between January and April in 2010 and in December 2009, according to court papers.
She was indicted by a grand jury in September 2013 for 33 felony counts of falsifying bbusiness records, in addition to a felony count of second-degree grand larceny.