Retired nun, school principal, will need a lot of Hail Marys after stealing $835,000 for gambling habit
June 9, 2021 | Robert Jonathan
A retired nun who was the longtime principal of a Catholic elementary school in the Los Angeles area could face up to a maximum of 40 years in federal prison for allegedly embezzling approximately $835,000 to finance gambling excursions to Las Vegas and Lake Tahoe.
In accordance with an apparent plea bargain, the nun has pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud and one count of money laundering.
Despite a vow of poverty, Mary Magaret Kreuper, 79, “embezzled money from St. James Catholic School,” in Torrance, Cal., for about 10 years up until she retired in 2018.
According to prosecutors in the U.S. Attorney’s Officer for the Central District of California, Sister Kreuper diverted funds into two accounts: The St. James Convent Account and the St. James Savings Account.
In what might possibly give an alternative meaning to the term habit, she used the money from those accounts for “large gambling expenses incurred at casinos and certain credit card charges,” federal prosecutors explained.
In her position, Kreuper controlled the school’s finances, including monies that came in for student tuition, charitable donations, and to pay nuns’ living expenses.
The nun, who served as the school’s principal for about 30 years, also allegedly engaged in some creative bookkeeping in preparing monthly and annual reports so that no one in the school administration would notice what was going on.
