Californian nuns stole schools funds for gambling, travel

LOS ANGELES: Two Catholic school nuns in California have admitted to embezzling about US$ 500,000, and using the funds over the years for travel and gambling in Las Vegas, their order said.

Sisters Mary Margaret Kreuper and Lana Chang, who are said to be best friends, took the money from tuition, fees and donations at St James Catholic School in Torrance, south of Los Angeles.

“We do know that they had a pattern of going on trips. We do know they had a pattern of going to casinos, and the reality is, they used the account as their personal account,” an attorney for the school told parents and alumni at a recent meeting, the Press-Telegram reported.

The Archdiocese of Los Angeles said the missing money was discovered during a routine audit and it is believed the nuns operated their scheme over at least a decade.

Kreuper was principal at the school for 29 years until her retirement earlier this year. Chang was a teacher for 20 years and she also retired this year. Parents were informed about the nuns’ misdeeds in a November 28 letter from the school’s pastor, Monsignor Michael Meyers.

The letter, a copy of which was obtained by AFP, states that Kreuper and Chang had taken a “substantial” amount of school funds for their personal use and the matter was uncovered during an audit conducted after Kreuper’s retirement.

Meyers said the school did not wish to pursue criminal proceedings against the pair, who spent decades as students’ moral enforcers. However, Adrian Alarcon, the head of media relations for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, told AFP on Monday that the Archdiocese didn’t want to just let the matter drop and planned to ‘become a complaining party.’

Meyers told parents the two Sisters were cooperating with an investigation to determine the full amount of misappropriated funds.