An admittedly cocaine-addicted grants administrator for the prestigious Rockefeller Foundation was sentenced to 3½ to 10½ years in prison yesterday for embezzling $421,000.
Cheryl McEwan, 51, stole the money over seven years, betraying the trust of officials in the global philanthropy group who’d mentored her and elevated her to an $80,000-a-year, globetrotting post despite her lack of a college education.
“Your crimes were extensive, systematic and longstanding,” Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Marcy Kahn said.
McEwan had claimed she was too mentally ill, coke-addled and battered by her musician husband to properly monitor the books of his bogus charity, through which much of the embezzled money flowed.
But lead prosecutor Diana Florence countered that it was McEwan who masterminded the scheme, stealing from the needy to bankroll cocaine binges and a new house.