Nuns Stealing to Go Gambling

Nuns stealing to go gambling – sounds like a title of a good movie, however, this is reality. Sister Mary Kreuper and Sister Lana Chang were admittedly stealing $500,000 from St James Catholic School in California. They were stealing the money over a course of several years, in order to go to Las Vegas gambling trips.

The nuns were taking the many from tuition, donations, and other fees that they had transferred to a separate bank account. They are apparently best friends and were recently retiring. They apologized for what they did and have the intention to pay back the money according to Sisters of Saint Joseph of Carondelet.

Nuns stealing to go gambling – found out during a regular audit

Francis Grimes of St James Catholic Church was telling ABC News, that: “They’re taking away the money from kids in school, from kids that need the money. To do that, it’s terrible.” They discovered the theft during an audit of school funds. However, this sum of money only represents what auditors were capable to trace from bank records for the last six years. It doesn’t show cash transactions.

They were using the stolen money to pay for their Las Vegas gambling trips. So how come that during the curse of six years no audit finds out yet? “This matter came to our attention during financial reviews in connection with the change in leadership at our School. Other staff persons were not implicated or responsible.” – Answering the parish’s pastor.

Stealing nun is the principal

Sister Kreuper was the principal of the school for 29 years and her best friend, Sister Chang was working there as a teacher for over 20 years. That seems like a lot of gambling trips. A rhetorical question follows. During 20 or 15 years how many times can nuns steal money to go gambling? The order of Sisters of Saint Joseph of Carondelet was saying in their statement, that their sisters were serving the families of the school since 1918. They are also very sorry and concerned about what happened. Hopefully, the sisters had some successful trips to Las Vegas to be able to pay back the money.

Who to blame?

If they were using online casinos instead of going to Las Vegas they could have saved a lot of stolen money on the trips. This story should serve as an example for everybody who puts their kids into religious schools. On the other hand who could blame anybody for doing what they like. As a school principal nun, life could be boring sometimes. It’s just natural that they were spicing it up a bit with some trips to Las Vegas. However, they could have done it from the church’s or the order’s money, not from money that they could have spent on the school.

If you are interested in other great and empowering stories, check out online gambling news in the US. On the other hand, instead of stealing from your religious school’s funds and donations, you can always visit Intertops and try to win some money to spend on your trip to Las Vegas.