Two Nuns Made Off With $500,000- How Did They Do it?

They were outed because of a simple accounting observation- an old check, deposited to an account entirely different from the St. James Elementary School of Torrance, California. This lead to the untangling of an embezzlement effort that was years in the making, where two best friends had the time of their lives off of money they had embezzled from the school, amounting to nearly $500,000. The alleged fraud, conducted by the retiring principal of St. James Sister Mary Kreuper and her good friend and partner in crime Sister Lana Chang, had been going on for nearly 10 years. 

The Nuns got away with this by using an old forgotten bank account set up for the church, and endorsing the checks out to "St. James Convent" instead of "St. James School."They would deposit checks into this account and use it as their own personal account. The Nuns had gone on expensive vacations, gambling trips, and used the money as a personal bank account to live above their means. It's most alarming because nuns are meant to take a vow of poverty when assuming their roles in the convent, and this goes against every moral code available. Despite this obvious infraction, the Arch Diocese is refusing to press charges because the women promise to pay the money back. To be honest, they dodged a bullet. 

Many parents are upset at the decision of the Arch Diocese to not press charges, and are furious over the years of what they thought was a lack of funding and fiscal hardships that were holding back projects and new initiatives. 

Do you think these nuns should face charges?


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