Firefighter accused of bilking toy drive program

A 53-year-old woman who formerly worked as a San Bruno firefighter has been arrested for allegedly stealing more than $25,000 from a toy drive program run by the department’s firefighters’ union, police said Tuesday.

Holly Kaye Nelson, a Cloverdale resident, was arrested Monday on suspicion of two felony counts of grand theft following an investigation that started in December into the theft of money from the San Bruno Professional Firefighters Association.

Police were looking into the stealing of funds from the union’s toy drive program between January and October of last year, and eventually learned that someone took more than $25,000 from a bank account belonging to the firefighters’ union over a two-year period.

Detectives identified the suspect as Nelson, who had ended her employment with the fire department in October, and she was taken into custody Monday, police said.

Police called the annual toy drive “an extremely worthwhile program that serves disadvantaged youth in the community” and thanked the firefighters’ union for their cooperation and transparency in the investigation.

Nelson’s LinkedIn profile says she worked for the San Bruno Fire Department from 2001 until this past October and is currently working as a firefighting and EMS skills instructor at the Santa Rosa Junior College Public Safety Training Center.