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(AP) -- ST. JOSEPH, Mo. (AP) -- A northwest Missouri woman is going to prison for stealing slightly more than $86,000 from a church where she worked.

Forty-nine-year-old Pamela West was the business manager at Wyatt Park Christian Church in St. Joseph. She pleaded guilty in November to the theft.

The St. Joseph News-Press reports (http://bit.ly/Vz1SNr) Buchanan County Circuit Judge Dan Kellogg sentenced West on Thursday to the maximum term of seven years in prison.

Investigators said West stole the funds over a 16-month period starting in April 2011. She earned $27,000 a year at the church and spent the embezzled money for personal expenses.

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