80-year-old nun sentenced to prison for stealing $835,000 from elementary school to pay off gambling debts

• Mary Margaret Kreuper, 80, admitted stealing $835,000 while principal of an LA-area school.
• She diverted tuition to a secret account, which she used to fund casino trips, prosecutors said.

An 80-year-old nun was sentenced to prison Monday after she last year admitted to stealing more than $800,000 from an elementary school to fund her gambling habit.

Mary Margaret Kreuper stole the money between 2008 and 2018 while working as the principal of St. James Catholic School in Torrance, California, near Los Angeles, the US attorney's office in the central district of California said Monday.

Kreuper diverted tuition fees and donations into a savings account, which she then used as a slush fund for "large gambling expenses incurred at casinos and certain credit card charges," the office said, quoting court documents.

Kreuper then falsified monthly and annual reports "to cover up her fraudulent conduct," the US attorney's office said. She also "directed St. James School employees to alter and destroy financial records during a school audit," it said.

In July last year, Kreuper pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud and one of money laundering.

During a virtual meeting Monday, Judge Otis D. Wright II sentenced Kreuper to one year in prison and ordered her to pay back $825,338 in restitution.

"I have sinned, I've broken the law and I have no excuses," Kreuper told the court via video link, according to The Associated Press.

"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.

"I was wrong and I'm profoundly sorry for the pain and suffering I've caused so many people."