But. Sister Mary is not full of grace. Months after Kreuper admitted to stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars, the 80-year-old was sentenced on Monday to a year and a day in federal prison. Kreuper, 79, was charged Tuesday with one count of wire fraud and one count of money laundering, and in a plea agreement pleaded guilty to both charges, the Associated Press reported. Since 2014, The Marshall Project has been curating some of the best criminal justice reporting from around the web. Sister Mary Margaret Kreuper, 80, was sentenced on Monday to 12 months and one day in federal prison by U.S. District Judge Otis D. Wright II and ordered to pay $825,338 in restitution to the St. James Catholic School in Torrance, California . As headteacher at St James Catholic School, which she ran for 28 years, she "controlled accounts at a credit union, including a savings account for the school and one established to pay the living expenses of the nuns employed by the school", prosecutors said. Your membership is the foundation of our sustainability and resilience. Although, formally speaking, Kreuper could face a punishment of up to 40 years in prison, it's unlikely she will receive such a long sentence. "As soon as she was confronted she accepted full responsibility for what she had done and she has cooperated completely with law enforcement and the Archdiocese,the pair said in a joint statement. ", Church says nuns embezzled from SoCal school to cover Vegas gambling tripswww.youtube.com. This time the question is whether lay teachers at parochial schools are exempt from the nation's fair employment laws. The purpose is to protect leaders of the faith, and their religions, from interference by the government. Kreuper stole the funds over the course of ten years, ending in 2018. James School, before tapping the funds for personal use. Kristen Biel would return to teaching elsewhere while fighting her case in court, but in June 2019, she died. In a statement to The Washington Post, Kreupers lawyers said she is very remorseful and sorry for any harm she has caused. His findings unraveled the entire scheme and, eventually, federal charges were levied against Sister Mary Margaret. She was the principal and had been colluding with longtime teacher Sister Lana Chang on the operation, per the Daily Breeze. When staff members finally found the check, they realized that it was not deposited in a St. James account, but a different bank account. All they needed to do was get through the school year. Sister Mary Margaret Kreuper, 79, was charged with one count of wire fraud and one count of money laundering after she admitted to investigators that she embezzled hundreds of thousands of. The vow leads a nun to imitate Jesus, who for our sake became poor, although he was rich. When first confronted, Mr Kumar said, the nun claimed she "did it in part because she believes priests get paid better than nuns". James Convent, not St. For decades, lower courts have recognized an exception to the nation's employment laws for ministers. But this week, prosecutors said Sister Mary Margaret, 79, had agreed to plead guilty to stealing more than. I, for one, absolutely love this move. Well, Sister Mary Margaret didnt quite stay true to her vow. These nuns took a vow of poverty and said, Oh no, weve got a rich uncle, parent Jack Alexander said. She is expected to report to prison by June, Byrne said, and will be released in 2023. According to prosecutors, Kreuper admitted that she falsified monthly and annual reports to the school administration to cover up her fraudulent conduct and lulled St James School and the administration into believing that the schools finances were being properly accounted for and its financial assets properly safeguarded, which, in turn, allowed defendant Kreuper to maintain her access and control of the schools finances and accounts and, thus, continue operating the fraudulent scheme.. Kreuper, who had taken a vow of poverty as a nun, worked as a principal at St. James Catholic School in Torrance for 28 years and allegedly embezzled the funds for 10 years until her retirement in 2018. Her husband, Darryl Biel, remembers that day vividly. Monday's case, however, does not involve trained and ordained ministers of the faith. Mary Margaret Kreuper was so close to getting away with it. Mary Margaret Kreuper of Los Angeles was sentenced to one year and a day in prison after pleading guilty in July 2021 to one count of wire fraud and one count of money laundering, according. Parents and alumni of St. James told KTTV-TV in late 2018 that they hoped the school followed through with pursuing criminal complaints against Kreuper and Chang. Kreuper pleaded guilty last July. St.James Catholic School caught embezzling $500K for personal use, including gambling as church declines to press charges. The scheme was uncovered during an audit after Kreuper retired in 2018. 15 Episodes of Seinfeld That Teach Everything You Need To Know About Life. (deployads = window.deployads || []).push({}); (function() { Sister Mary Margaret and Sister Lana have expressed to me and asked that I convey to you, the deep remorse they each feel for their actions and ask for your forgiveness and prayers, Meyers wrote in a letter to parents on Nov. 28. Her embezzlement activities took place from about 2008-2018. Sister Mary Margaret Kreuper, 79, a former principal at St James Catholic School in Torrance, California, used tuition fees and donations to subsidize casino gambling expenses and credit card. However, around the same time, a family at the school asked for an old check they had written to St. James. Sister Mary Margaret Kreuper, 79,of Los Angeles, was charged with one count of wire fraud and one count of money laundering on Tuesday for defraudingSt. James Catholic Schoolover a period of 10 years. (Shutterstock) LOS ANGELES, CA The retired principal of a Catholic . Despite the ongoing thefts, financial statements revealed the church continuing to operate in the black as the two sisters clandestinely plowed through church funds. German cardinal offers to resign over sexual abuse catastrophe, Original reporting and incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every morning. The Torrance Police Department, the FBI and IRS Criminal Investigation conducted the investigation into the allegations against Kreuper. She claimed that the salary differential between nuns and priests meant she was owed this money, which is inconsistent with the vow of poverty she took.. Her husband said that in her final days, the couple talked extensively about the case. Sister Mary Margaret Kreuper admits to stealing over $835k from a Catholic School. We use cookies to better understand website visitors, for advertising, and to offer you a better experience. The embezzlement helped to fuel her gambling habit. We do know they had a pattern of going to casinos, and the reality is, they used the account as their personal account, an attorney told parents and alumni at Mondays meeting. Kreuper falsified monthly and annual reports to cover up her crime and asked school employees to alter and destroy financial records during an audit. Kreuper did not recognize she had a gambling problem until she was accused of embezzling more than $835,000 from the school, Byrne said. I have sinned, Ive broken the law and I have no excuses, Kreuper said at the sentencing over Zoom. Ive used this to teach my son that were all human, we all make mistakes, but the power of forgiveness is the most powerful tool that we have.. Court documents show that she also oversaw the St. James Convent Account, a savings account that funded the living expenses of the nuns who worked at the school. After taking a vow of poverty, her excuse for lavish gambling expenses is hilarious. The nun took frequent gambling trips to Las Vegas and holidays to Lake Tahoe and other locations in southern California, according to Poonam Kumar, the assistant US attorney. These nuns took a vow of poverty and said, oh no, weve got a rich uncle, one parent told the Press-Telegram. All rights reserved. 66 is still a fairly competent age. In June 2021, Sister Mary Margaret Kreuper admitted to embezzling $835,000 from the Catholic school where she served as principal for 28 years. She faces up to 40 years in federal prison, but is claiming mental illness. James School.. (RNS) Recently Sister Mary Margaret Kreuper, a Catholic nun who stole $835,000 from a Catholic elementary school in Torrance, California, was sent to prison for a year and ordered to pay the . A Los Angeles nun jailed for stealing more than $800,000 to fund a gambling habit has admitted "I have sinned". Church officials said they did not wish to press charges against the sisters, who both expressed remorse. By that math, Sister Mary Margaret was only 66 when the behavior began. But how do we define who is a minister and who is not? G7 summit - Biden brings 1.2m Cadillac The Beast but will it fit down Cornwalls tiny country lanes. It turns out that at the time Kristen Biel learned she had breast cancer, Kreuper, the school principal who fired her, was embezzling large amounts of money to go on gambling sprees in Las Vegas. When this was going on, she was not nearly as old. Instead of sitting in the Supreme Court chamber, though, Biel, like the rest of us, will be at home listening. The church body in the case commissions teachers as ministers, but does not ordain them. I promised her I would see this through," he says. The 80-year-old nun also was ordered to pay a total of. The sisters later confessed to using the funds for themselves. But as the archdiocese was completing its audit, it noticed something was off with the funding. Sister Mary Margaret became a nun when she turned 18 in 1960 and took a vow of poverty. She admitted to taking a total of $835,000 in donations from the elementary school, and faces up to 40 years in federal prison. According to Newstalk.com, the school indicated in a letter to parents at the time that they did not want to pursue criminal charges against the duo, after they both expressed "desire and inten[t] to make complete restitution to St. James School.". Claiming mental illness at her age is a play for probation or the ability to serve her sentence at home. Her husband, Darryl Biel, remembers that day vividly. One article quoted a church accountant as ball-parking the amount at $500,000. Sister Mary Margaret Kreuper, 80, admitted stealing the money from St James Catholic School in the L.A. suburb of Torrance, where she was school principal for nearly 30 years. Other parents remarked it was well-known that Kreuper and Chang traveled often and went gambling, with the two women claiming they were gifted the trips by a rich relative. Sister Mary Margaret Kreuper, who worked as the school principal for 28 years, and Sister Lana Chang, a teacher at the school for 20 years, reportedly bilked the funds over a period of at least a decade, the Press-Telegram reported. On. Kreuper originally pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud and one count of money laundering back in 2021. During the time period this was happening, she had no idea this was happening. An old unused bank account was the giveaway. Apparently, the Vegas trips were common knowledge, but the nuns explained that the gambling excursions were gifts from a rich uncle. Poonam Kumar, the assistant U.S. attorney for the Central District of California who prosecuted the case, told The Washington Post that Kreuper had diverted checks and cash from St. James parents into a long-overlooked church account to pay for large gambling expenses incurred at casinos and certain credit-card charges. 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