A California nun will serve a year in prison for stealing $835,000 from an elementary school to support her gambling habit in an emotional case that left Los Angeles families and even the federal judge who handed down the sentence reeling.
Mary Margaret Kreuper, 80, who pleaded guilty to wire fraud and money laundering for stealing the money over the course of 10 years while she was principal at St James Catholic school, had asked the judge not to send her to prison.
“I have sinned, I’ve broken the law and I have no excuses,” Kreuper said via teleconference. “My actions were in violation of my vows, my commandments, the law and, above all, the sacred trust that so many had placed in me. I was wrong and I’m profoundly sorry for the pain and suffering I’ve caused so many people.”
Kreuper admitted to diverting money to pay for personal expenses, the US attorney’s office said, including vacations to Lake Tahoe and Las Vegas. In letters sent to the court, the majority of parents and students asked that Kreuper face a lighter sentence, though some asked that she receive the maximum punishment.
Otis D Wright II, the US district judge overseeing the case, said he had struggled to determine an appropriate sentence for Kreuper, telling the nun that she had been “one heck of a teacher” and that he couldn’t judge her on “the worst thing that she’s done in her life” alone, the Los Angeles Times reported. Wright, who at one point was so overcome he covered his face in his hands and silently paused, said he took into account the more than 60 years she spent as a nun, her age and lack of criminal history.
“I haven’t slept well in God knows how long,” Wright said of his struggles with the case during a Zoom hearing, according to the newspaper. He sentenced Kreuper to a year and a day in prison, rather than the two years prosecutors had requested. Kreuper will also have to pay more than $800,000 in restitution to the school.
Retired nun admits to embezzling more than $800,000 to fund gambling habitRead more
Wright told Kreuper, who was principal for 28 years, that she had probably had positive impacts on the lives of thousands of students, but also that “this horrible example will affect these kids … You just ran completely off the road,” the Long Beach Press-Telegram reported.
Prosecutors said the now retired elementary school principal acknowledged that she embezzled donations, tuition and fees between 2008 and 2018 to pay for personal expenses, including credit card charges and “large gambling expenses incurred at casinos”. St James Catholic school didn’t have enough money for new books and classroom supplies or field trips, prosecutors said, and the money Kreuper stole could have paid for the tuition of 14 students for 10 years.
After church officials confronted Kreuper about the theft, she said priests received higher pay than nuns and that she believed she should get a raise, according to the US attorney.
Kreuper was addicted to gambling, according to her attorney, and she has been kept under “severe restrictions” at a convent for the last three years, conditions the judge said may be harsher than those she’ll face in federal prison.
While some families said her crimes violated their trust and led them to question their faith, others said they forgave Kreuper and that she always put families first.
“The church tells us to forgive those who have trespassed against us,” one parent said. “I’ve used this to teach my son that we’re all human, we all make mistakes, but the power of forgiveness is the most powerful tool that we have.”
Kreuper wiped away tears during the judge’s remarks and apologized for her crimes.
“I was wrong, and I am profoundly sorry for the pain and the suffering that I have caused so many people,” she told the judge.
The Associated Press contributed reporting
