Church worker stole over $500K for years — until temporary replacement noticed, feds say

Over a span of at least 13 years, a business manager stole about $573,836 from an Indiana Catholic church and its affiliated school, according to federal authorities.

She was only caught when — while on leave from her job in November 2021 — a temporary replacement “noticed suspicious transfers from the parish’s gaming account to an external bank account,” according to a Feb. 13 news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Indiana. The discovery prompted an investigation.

Now Marie Carson, 72, has been sentenced to two years in federal prison after she pleaded guilty to wire fraud, records show. She’s also ordered to pay the church $573,836.59 in restitution.

The defense attorney representing Carson did not immediately respond to a request for comment from McClatchy News on Feb. 14.

Authorities said that while Carson was employed by the parish in Indianapolis, she was tasked with processing checks and conducting the church’s financial transactions. She was the only person in charge of the parish’s finances.

At least 124 times between August 2008 and May 2021, she transferred money from the church and school to her personal accounts, according to court documents.

“In further effort to succeed, Carson kept the amount of each transaction no more than a few thousand dollars and made false entries into the database utilized by The Church and School to track payments from parishioners in a way to hide the fraudulent transfers of funds to her,” prosecutors said.

Authorities said they found evidence that she stole about $573,836 from the parish starting in 2008, but “the actual monetary loss is likely much higher, as Carson admitted to church officials that she began this scheme in 2004.”

She used a “significant amount” of the stolen funds to gamble with her husband and take annual, month-long vacations in Florida, according to the release.

“For more than thirteen years, this defendant abused her position of trust to embezzle money from parishioners intended for a church and school,” U.S. Attorney Zachary A. Myers said in the release. “Her greed and desire for lavish vacations outweighed her interest in following the dictates of our criminal laws and the teachings of her church, ‘thou shalt not steal.’”

This story was originally published February 14, 2023 at 2:42 PM with the headline "Church worker stole over $500K for years — until temporary replacement noticed, feds say."