Shawn Christopher Flannery, age 50 of Batesville, passed away January 28, 2023 at Margaret Mary Health after a long battle with cancer. The 79-year-old former nun pleaded guilty to federal charges for stealing more than $800,000 from St. James Catholic School earlier this month. According to local news outlet KTLA5, Kreuper was aided by Sister Lana Chang, who taught eighth grade and was vice-principal at the school. By Megan Carpentier The St. James Catholic Church school in Torrance, California, on February 7, 2022. Until this last spring, Kreuper was the principal of St. James Catholic School in Torrance and Chang was. The nuns embezzlement first came to light when Sister Mary Margaret was about to retire, according to church officials. All rights reserved. ", The judge advised Kreuper that he expected her to make a statement at sentencing, adding, "I don't have to worry about (lies) coming from you.". Kreuper was only exposed when she retired in 2018 and the Archdiocese of Los Angeles noted some irregularities in the schools bookkeeping while searching for her replacement. Nuns joining Kreupers, order, the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet, take vows of poverty when they are called to their vocation. Kreuper stole about $83,000 per year, which is the equivalent of tuition for 14 students, prosecutors argued. Powered by. Defense attorneys said Kreuper became a nun when she was 18 years old, and for the next 59 years "dedicated her life to helping others and educating children in Archdiocesan schools. "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. The attorney said the nuns had spent the money on gambling trips and on vacations. Officials in the archdiocese of Los Angeles told parents that they had proof that a Sister Mary Margaret Kreuper and Sister Lana Chang had stolen hundreds of thousands of dollars from the St James Catholic School in Torrance. Thanks for contacting us. 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. Mary Margaret Kreuper, a nun who admitted stealing more than $800,000 from St. James Catholic School in Torrance when she was its principal, spent some of the money on trips to Las Vegas and. Retired nun pleads guilty to embezzling $835,000 from school, in part to finance gambling. They noted that a lay person in the same situation could expect a lengthy prison sentence. He said some former St. James Catholic School students even wrote letters to the judge in support of their former teacher and principal. Sister Mary Margaret was charged on Tuesday with wire fraud and money laundering while she was the principal of St. James Catholic School in Torrance, Calif., the office of the U.S. attorney for the Central District of California said in a statement. Jack Alexander of Redondo Beach said that the pair would often go traveling and gambling, claiming they had been given the money by a rich relative. In a statement on Tuesday about Sister Mary Margarets guilty plea, the archdiocese said the revelations had shocked and saddened the community. Sister Mary Margarets lawyers, Mark A. Byrne and Daniel V. Nixon, said she was very remorseful., 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, they said in a statement. The disgraced nun stole hundreds of thousands of . In addition to stealing $835,339, she falsified monthly and annual reports, and instructed employees to alter and destroy financial records during a school audit. What happened is wrong. She confessed to causing losses to St. James Catholic School totaling $835,339 over the course of the scheme, the statement said. She was the principal. The 80-year old nun was ordered to pay $825,338.57 she embezzled while principal at St.. "At our school, we have initiated additional procedures and oversight policies for financial management and reporting responsibilities," Meyers wrote. 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. Alexander said, These nuns took a vow of poverty and said, Oh, no, weve got a rich uncle, Alexander told the paper. She basically was able to keep them secret and the school administration was never the wiser that there were these extra funds that she was taking, Kumar told The Post. Sister Mary Margaret Kreuper of Los Angeles will serve one year, and one day, behind federal prison bars for fraud and money laundering charges. ", U.S. District Judge Otis D. Wright II said at last year's plea hearing that he was raised as a Roman Catholic, "and was educated by nuns. Before Kreuper was sentenced, parents of children attending St. James and former students sent letters about Kreuper's role at the school and the impact of her actions. While investigators found the two gave some of the stolen money back to the school, the rest was used for their "personal gain." St. James Catholic SchoolSister Mary Margaret Kreuper embezzled $835,339 in the schools tuition, fees, and charitable donations for her personal expenses. This was really an abuse of position of trust, right, Kumar said. GQ may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. 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. 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. The 80-year-old nun also was ordered to pay a total of. "I apologize for the public scandal, the embarrassment and the financial burden that I have placed on the sisters in my religious community, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, St. James School, the parishioners, parents and students who placed their trust in me," she said. Most of the funds she blew on gambling trips to Las Vegas and Lake Tahoe with . The nuns apparently told everyone that a rich uncle was paying for their trips. Kreuper's attorney Mark Byrne explained that his client, who retired in 2018, has been under strict supervision at her convent. We were an ATM, and people know it and they wont ask for justice, Jack Alexander, a father at the school, said. (Youtube/KCAL) Listen At the time of Flynns reporting, St. James School estimated the two women embezzled around $500,000. Kreuper, 79, could get sentenced to up to 40 years behind bars. Their crimes came to light in 2018, and earlier this week, Kreuper pleaded guilty to two counts of wire fraud and money laundering. As principal -- a position she had for nearly 30 years before she retired -- Kreuper was responsible for the money the school received to pay for tuition and fees, as well as for charitable donations, according to documents filed in Los Angeles federal court. As principal, Kreuper was responsible for the money the school garnered in tuition, fees, and charitable donations. The rich uncle was the parents of the St. James students," he said. It remains unclear which years specifically she embezzled funds from the school during her 28-year tenure there, though she did admit to doing so for over a decade. Kreuper, who apologized to the community during Mondays sentencing, also made a Hail Mary plea to the judge for leniency. They were able to get away with it because the school was doing so well, financially, that nobody ever missed the money. Name, email and comment will be stored in our database. This story has been updated to correct the spelling of Torrance and Sister Lana Chang. Substantial amount of school funds for their personal use.https://t.co/nIiuz3JiDR, Dalton (@DaltonReport) December 1, 2018. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Oh boy, the flying nun really did it this time. I have sinned, I have broken the law, and I have no excuses, Kreuper said during Mondays hearing, according to the LA Times. Ultimately Kreuper admitted to stealing over $835,000. Crime & Safety Gambling Nun's Bad 'Habit' Catches Up To Her Catholic school principal Sister Mary Margaret Kreuper, 80, was sentenced to prison for embezzling from the school to feed a gambling habit. She alone will face criminal charges. On Monday, an attorney told the parents of St James students that the two nuns had used school funds as if the funds belonged to their own personal account. 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. 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. The sisters stole a total of $500,000, or half a million dollars, officials said. 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. He holds dual bachelor's degrees from Pace University and a master's degree from New York University. The embezzlement helped to fuel her gambling habit. pic.twitter.com/Gcbn0WRky5, Karen Devine (@KarenDevineKESQ) December 11, 2018. According to documents accompanying the plea agreement, Sister Mary Margaret diverted school funds into the schools convent account and its federal credit union savings account, and then used the money for expenses that the order would not have approved, much less paid for, including large gambling expenses at casinos in Nevada and credit card charges. Mary Margaret Kreuper, 80, of Los Angeles, was also ordered to pay $825,338 in restitution, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office. But the Catholic church is glad to have a scandal that doesn't involve boy-rape, so they've got that going for them. Sister Mary Margaret Kreuper, who was principal of St. James Catholic School in Torrance, California, used the school funds to . While other checks were being cashed properly and accounted for, the crooked nun deposited other checks in the secret bank accounts before they were even accounted for by staff. Sister Mary Margaret Kreuper and Sister Lana Chang were seen as two of the strictest nuns at St James Catholic School in Torrance, California. A disgraced nun who stole hundreds of thousands of dollars from a Los Angeles Catholic elementary school and went on Vegas gambling sprees will be reciting her penance from inside a federal prison cell. That order has also paid for Kreupers living expenses for multiple decades. Parents said the two nuns were big on moral fortitude and that they were very hard on kids who slipped up and broke the rules. Thats when they started to notice irregularities in the bookkeeping. Sister Mary Margaret Kreuper and Sister Lana Chang were seen as two of the strictest nuns at St James Catholic School in Torrance, California. Kreuper has admitted she took the money and expressed remorse. Cloudflare Ray ID: 7a110852986c4083 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. Sister Mary Margaret Kreuper, 79, of Los Angeles, will plead guilty to fraud and money laundering and faces up to 40 years in prison, the U.S. Department of Justice announced. Sister Mary Kreuper served as the principal at St. James Catholic School in Torrance, California, for 28 years. 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. The audit uncovered a long-forgotten account into which Kreuper would divert checks made out to the school. She further admitted "lulling St. James School and the administration into believing that the school's finances were being properly accounted for and its financial assets properly safeguarded," which allowed her to maintain access to the school's finances. He was unhappy with the churchs decision not to prosecute. But according to the US Attorneys Office Central District of California, Kreuper diverted 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.. Luis Sinco/Los Angeles Times/Getty ImagesSister Mary Kreuper served as the principal at St. James Catholic School in Torrance, California, for 28 years. Sister Mary Margaret Gambling. https://t.co/fsUwStYj3J. Sister Mary Margaret Kreuper, who worked as the school principal for 28 years, and Sister Lana Chang, confessed to embezzling at least $500,000 from the Catholic school so that they could gamble . 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