An 80-year-old nun who admitted she embezzled $800,000 from the school she ran to finance a gambling habit was sentenced Monday to a year in prison. “I have sinned, I’ve broken the law, and I have no excuses,” Mary Margaret Kreuper said by teleconference at her sentencing hearing. “My actions were in violation of my vows, my commandments, the law, and above all, the sacred trust that so many had placed in me.” Kreuper—who took a vow of poverty—ran the St. James Catholic School in Torrance, California, and diverted tuition and donations over a period of eight years, federal prosecutors said. She now has to pay back the money—after she gets out of lockup.
