He added that an expert report explained she had a gambling addiction. They noted that a lay person in the same situation could expect a lengthy prison sentence. Sister Mary Margaret Kreuper embezzled $835,339 in the schools tuition, fees, and charitable donations for her personal expenses. Ultimately Kreuper admitted to stealing over $835,000. Powered by. The sisters stole a total of $500,000, or half a million dollars, officials said. Two nuns have admitted to embezzling money from the Catholic school where they worked and using the cash to fund gambling sprees. Sister Mary Margaret Kreuper and Sister Lana Chang were seen as two of the strictest nuns at St James Catholic School in Torrance, California. Until this last spring, Kreuper was the principal of St. James Catholic School in Torrance and Chang was. Mary Margaret Kreuper, principal of St. James Catholic School in Torrance, Calif., until 2018, was charged with stealing more than $835,000 in school funds to pay for personal expenses, including gambling trips. Kreuper used the stolen funds for personal expenses like paying off credit cards but primarily to finance her gambling habit at casinos across Nevada. But officials from the Archdiocese of Los Angeles told parents and alumni of the school that auditors have not been able to trace all of the money trail. She is scheduled to appear in the Federal District Court in Los Angeles on July 1. Her religious order, the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet, has yet to publicly comment on the matter. Bank records show Sister Mary Margaret Kreuper and Sister Lana Chang had been embezzling funds from St. James Catholic School in Torrance for at least a decade, the Press-Telegram reported. Parents said the two nuns were big on moral fortitude . Most of the funds she blew on gambling trips to Las Vegas and Lake Tahoe with her friend and housemate, Sister Lana Chang. Sister Mary Margaret Kreuper admits to stealing over $835k from a Catholic School. We do know they had a pattern of going to casinos, and the reality is, they used the account as their personal account, the attorney told the crowd at the meeting. She cant leave the premises unless shes given permission and she has to tell them where shes going and she has to be accompanied by somebody, the defense attorney told The Post. Kreuper, who used funds to pay for trips to Las Vegas, Lake Tahoe and Temecula, says she will use the rest of her days trying to make amends. Mary was a precocious child. Sister Mary Margaret Kreuper, 80, who took a vow of poverty, begged a judge to show her mercy and spare her prison, saying: "I have sinned, I've broken the law and I have no excuses." Sister Mary Margaret Kreuper, 79, was charged Tuesday with wire fraud and money laundering for ripping off St. James Catholic School for a period of 10 years ending in September 2018,. The Essential Michelle Yeoh Viewing Guide, Donna Kelce Tells Us the Story Behind Her Half-Eagles, Half-Chiefs Jersey, Sex Lives: A Guy Who Draws the Line at Married Men. She was rumbled in June 2018, just as she was about to retire after 28 years as principal, when an internal audit blew the lid off the racket. Defense attorney Mark Byrne told The Post that Kreuper joined her order when she was 18 years old and has been an educator for 54 years. There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase, a SQL command or malformed data. To revisit this article, visit My Profile, thenView saved stories. Sister Mary Margaret Kreuper, 80, who took a vow of poverty, begged a judge to show her mercy and spare her prison, saying: "I have sinned, I've broken the law and I have no excuses." Kreuper admitted embezzling about $835,000 (616,000) in donations, tuition and fee money between . Kreuper pleaded guilty to the charges in July and also admitted she falsified monthly and annual reports to the school administration, and told employees to cover up her fraudulent conduct. Last updated on: February 7, 2022, 08:42h. Sister Mary Margaret Kreuper and Sister Lana Chang of St.James Catholic School caught embezzling $500K for personal use, including gambling as church declines to press charges. She also controlled the schools credit union accounts, which she used to divert other funds into that she would then use for the spending, according to prosecutors. Shawn is the son of Linda and Bill Flannery born November 25, 1972 in Cincinnati, Ohio. At least I hope you do.. Gambling Nun Who Embezzled $800,000+ of School Funds Gets Off Lightly With 366-Day Jail Sentence Judge Wright II sentenced Kreuper to one year and a day in a federal prison She must also pay $825,338.57 in restitution for the money she embezzled Kreuper admitted using the school funds to pay for "large gambling expenses" Crime Calif. Nun, 80, Sentenced for Stealing More than $800K from Catholic School to Fund Gambling Addiction Sister Mary Margaret Kreuper pleaded guilty for using funds to pay for. He holds dual bachelor's degrees from Pace University and a master's degree from New York University. Sister Mary Margaret Kreuper, of Los Angeles, was sentenced Monday to one year and one day for fraud and money laundering charges. But many parents were furious when they discovered the diocese had decided not to press charges against Kreuper because she had shown remorse.. And wasnt it even weirder that she was going to Vegas all the time? She ran the institution on a shoestring while plundering an account containing tuition fees and charitable donations over a period of ten years. She was running the school that these parents had chosen to send their children [to], and not just for the academics. "The Sisters of St. Joseph both desire and intend to make complete restitution to St. James School," the Daily Breeze reported. Kreuper controlled accounts at a credit union, including a savings account for the school and one established to pay the living expenses of nuns -- who had taken a vow of poverty -- employed by the school, prosecutors said. In December 2018, after a meeting with the archdiocese, the Torrance Police Department said that it was dedicating additional staffing to help examine evidence and find people who had submitted tuition checks, account payment information or cash donations. Monsignor Micheal Meyers, the pastor at St. James Catholic Church sent a letter to pupils' parents stating that Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet, the nuns' order, is cooperating with the parish and the Archdiocese to find out how much money was taken. Kreuper acknowledged that for a period of 10 years ending in September 2018, she embezzled $835,339 from St. James Catholic School. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. As principal, Kreuper was responsible for the money the school garnered in tuition, fees, and charitable donations. Sister Mary Margaret Kreuper, who was principal of St. James Catholic School in Torrance, California, used the school funds to . As it stands, the Los Angeles Archdiocese said it was shocked and saddened.. Kreuper was released under her own recognizance but will have to turn herself in to the Federal Bureau of Prisons by June 7 to begin her year-and-a-day sentence. Police said they were still carrying out their own investigation. The archdiocese informed authorities of the matter in 2018 when financial reviews during a change in leadership showed a substantial amount of school funds had been misappropriated for personal use by Sister Mary Margaret during her tenure as school principal, church officials said. 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Head Nun Caught Stealing Over $800,000 From Catholic Elementary School Where She Worked. Of course! We've received your submission. https://t.co/fsUwStYj3J. After charges were filed, her attorneys issued a statement saying Sister Mary Margaret suffered "from mental illness that clouded her judgment and caused her to do something that she otherwise would not have done. Wikimedia CommonsKreuper used the stolen funds for personal expenses like paying off credit cards but primarily to finance her gambling habit at casinos across Nevada. 178.79.131.117 We've received your submission. A Los Angeles nun jailed for stealing more than $800,000 to fund a gambling habit has admitted "I have sinned". As principal of St. James Catholic School in Torrance, California, she certainly did but while also embezzling more than $835,000 in funds to support her secretive gambling habit. The nuns apparently told everyone that a rich uncle was paying for their trips. But this week, prosecutors said Sister Mary Margaret, 79, had agreed to plead guilty to stealing more than. The archdiocese and St. James Parish and School are grateful to local and federal law enforcement agencies for their work in the investigation of this matter. The 80-year-old nun also was ordered to pay a total of $825,338.57 in restitution for the money she embezzled while she was a principal at St. James Catholic School in Torrance, Calif. They did not necessarily overlook, but asked to judge her more by her entire life rather than the theft from by St. James (Catholic School). She diverted school funds into the St. James Convent Account and the St. James Savings Account, which were used "to pay for expenses that the order would not have approved, much less paid for, including large gambling expenses incurred at casinos and certain credit card charges," the Department of Justice stated. Many of the letters I cited and many of the people who spoke, talked about wanting something more from their childrens education. You can email the site owner to let them know you were blocked. Its unclear what will happen to Chang, or whether shes even involved in any ongoing investigation. But all the while, they were using school funds to pay for their jaunts. Photo by PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP via Getty Images, 2023 NYP Holdings, Inc. All Rights Reserved, Nun stops burglary with quick thinking and prayers: This is Gods property, Sister Andre, the worlds oldest living person, dies at 118, I was a celibate nun for 24 years then fell in love with a Catholic monk, Priest accused of inviting two nuns to take part in a threesome. Two nuns from a California Catholic school have been accused of siphoning $500,000 in tuition, fees, and donations that could have gone towards the school's development into a different account that was then used to fund trips and casino visits. The diocese had initially called the police, but after the nuns confessed they said they wouldnt press charges against the nuns. At the time of Flynns reporting, St. James School estimated the two women embezzled around $500,000. LOS ANGELES, CA The retired principal of a Catholic elementary school in Torrance, who as a nun took a vow of poverty, was sentenced Monday to 12 months and a day behind bars for embezzling more than $835,000 in school funds to support a gambling habit and other personal expenses. She alone will face criminal charges. She also admitted to falsifying monthly and annual financial reports, and to telling school employees to alter and destroy financial records during an audit, the prosecutors statement and court documents said. Sister Mary Margaret Kreuper admitted embezzling $835,000 from St James Catholic School in the LA suburb of Torrance. For Sister Mary Margaret Kreuper, the rest of her mortal life will be decided in a few short weeks. It was then that Kreuper started to get nervous and told two employees to destroy documents and directed them to not mention to the auditors that certain documents were missing. One man, whose children attend St James, grumbled that the nuns had been using the school as if it was their own private ATM. Officials said that they carried out an internal audit as a matter of routine, since the school was about to get new leadership. 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 to a press release from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Central District of California. LOS ANGELES (CBSLA) Mary Margaret Kreuper, a now-retired nun who was the principal of St. James Catholic School in Torrance, has agreed to plead guilty to fraud and money laundering charges. Kreuper, who was the principal of the school for 28 years, agreed to plead guilty as part of a deal with prosecutors, the release said. Kreuper used her position to funnel $835,339 of the schools funds to pay for expenses that the order would not have approved, much less paid for, including large gambling expenses incurred at casinos and certain credit card charges, according to the plea agreement. Sister Mary Margaret Kreuper was sentenced to a year in prison after she admitted to stealing more than $835,000 from a Southern California school to fund her gambling addiction. The statement pledged that the order would work with the diocese to discover the full amount that had been taken from the school; they pledged to restore all of the money that was stolen. We had a lot of letters from parents and students who knew about the fact that she had taken the money, and presumably the money was taken from them, and yet they found it in their hearts to forgive her, Byrne said. Pictured, Sister Mary Margaret Kreuper and Sister Lana Chang of St.James Catholic School, Torrance, California. Assistant US Attorney Poonam Kumar told The Post that the wayward nun took frequent gambling trips to Las Vegas, Lake Tahoe, Temecula and other locations throughout Southern California. Substantial amount of school funds for their personal use.https://t.co/nIiuz3JiDR, Dalton (@DaltonReport) December 1, 2018. Bobby Kent And The Murder That Inspired The Cult Classic Film "Bully", What Stephen Hawking Thinks Threatens Humankind The Most, 27 Raw Images Of When Punk Ruled New York, Join The All That's Interesting Weekly Dispatch, Luis Sinco/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images. Your IP: Sisters of St. Joseph of CarondeletSister Lana Chang worked alongside Sister Kreuper for 20 years, at least 10 of which they spent embezzling the schools money together. For Sister Mary Margaret Kreuper, the rest of her mortal life will be decided in a few short weeks. Most of the funds she blew on gambling trips to Las Vegas and Lake Tahoe with . Sister Mary Margaret worked at the school for 29 years. The offices of the U.S. attorney for the Central District of California revealed that she had used funds raised for the school for personal expenses as well as gambling. He said some former St. James Catholic School students even wrote letters to the judge in support of their former teacher and principal. 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