{"id":981124,"date":"2022-02-08T09:19:44","date_gmt":"2022-02-08T09:19:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/02\/08\/nun-jailed-after-stealing-800k-to-fund-bad-gambling-habit-luxury-trips\/"},"modified":"2022-02-08T09:19:44","modified_gmt":"2022-02-08T09:19:44","slug":"nun-jailed-after-stealing-800k-to-fund-bad-gambling-habit-luxury-trips","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/02\/08\/nun-jailed-after-stealing-800k-to-fund-bad-gambling-habit-luxury-trips\/","title":{"rendered":"Nun jailed after stealing $800k to fund bad gambling habit, luxury trips"},"content":{"rendered":"

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An ageing nun who stole over $800 000 to bankroll a gambling habit and fund lavish holidays was jailed for a year in California on Monday.<\/p>\n

Mary Margaret Kreuper, 80, swore to a life of poverty when she took her vows six decades ago.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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But as principal of a Roman Catholic elementary school near Los Angeles, she diverted $835 000 of school funds to pay for gambling jaunts in Las Vegas, a court heard.<\/p>\n

She also used the money to take luxury trips to swanky resorts like Lake Tahoe, where well-heeled tourists gather to cruise in the summer and ski in the winter.<\/p>\n

“I have sinned, I have broken the law, and I have no excuses,” Kreuper told the court, according to The Los Angeles Times.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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MORE ON THIS<\/span><\/h2>\n<\/div>\n
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She said her crimes were “a violation of my vows, the commandments, the law, and above all the sacred trust that so many had placed in me.”<\/p>\n

Kreuper admitted wire fraud and money laundering during a hearing last year.<\/p>\n

The court was told how money sent to the school to pay for tuition and charitable donations was instead funnelled into secret accounts that Kreuper controlled.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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When an audit threatened to expose the scheme, Kreuper told employees to destroy incriminating documents, the court heard.<\/p>\n

The Times reported that when she was initially confronted by the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, Kreuper argued that priests were better paid than nuns and that she thought she deserved a raise.<\/p>\n

Kreuper’s lawyer, Mark Byrne, asked that she be allowed to serve her time at the convent where she had been kept since her crimes were uncovered in 2018.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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He said she was addicted to gambling.<\/p>\n

“This is not an excuse for what she did,” he said, according to the Times, “this is merely an explanation.”<\/p>\n

District Judge Otis D. Wright II told Kreuper that he had wrestled with what to do with her, and acknowledged she had been a good teacher for many decades,<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“But somewhere along the line, you just ran completely off the road, and I think you understand that. At least I hope you do,” he said.<\/p>\n

Kreuper was sentenced to 12 months and one day behind bars.<\/p>\n

AFP<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An ageing nun who stole over $800 000 to bankroll a gambling habit and fund lavish holidays was jailed for a year in California on Monday. Mary Margaret Kreuper, 80, swore to a life of poverty when she took her vows six decades ago. But as principal of a Roman Catholic elementary school near Los […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":981125,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-981124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/981124","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=981124"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/981124\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=981124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=981124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=981124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}