I already covered this in the OP, I felt a strong sense of kinship, I would get a lot of warm fuzzies from doing this

I agree that it feels uncharitable to ask hard questions of someone claiming to go through a rough time. But gwern's proposed suggestion- of donating the money to CI directly, and trying to earmark it for her suspension if she does sign up- feels like it should give the same fuzzies while protecting you from this being a scam. You can even send her an email saying "I donated to CI on your behalf" for some extra fuzzies.