Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - These Nuns Are Shady

Episode Date: March 31, 2025

​Mary Margaret Kreuper, an 80-year-old retired nun, served as the principal of St. James Catholic School in Torrance, California, for 28 years. During her tenure, she embezzled funds from the school. Kreuper diverted tuition fees and charitable donations into secret accounts she controlled, using the funds to finance personal expenses, including trips to Las Vegas and Lake Tahoe. ​To conceal her actions, Kreuper falsified financial reports and instructed school employees to alter and destroy records during audits.

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My whole world is falling apart right now. It's chaos. Watch the Hulu original series. The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives. Now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus for Bumno subscribers. Terms apply. So this nun has a gambling problem, and she'll do anything to break her vow of poverty and hit up the casinos. Anything.

Now, her name's Sister Mary, and she's in her 60s or 70s, and she's the principal at a Catholic elementary school in Los Angeles. And even though she's a nun, Sister Mary has a problem. She really likes to gamble. And one day, it's not entirely clear when, she comes up with a plan to steal some money so she can gamble as much. as she wants. So first, she low-key goes and opens up several bank accounts. Then she starts stealing from the elementary school that she teaches at. I mean, she's straight up taking money from the school's bank account. She's embezzling the student's tuition checks. We're talking tens of thousands of dollars here, like she's making bank off this scheme. However, stealing money ain't all that much

fun unless you have someone to share it with. So at some point, Sister Mary gets this woman involved. Sister Chang. And Sister Chang works at the school as well. She's a teacher. And she's also Mary's best friend and they live together. They're roommates. So anyway, these two nuns start spending all the school's money. And now before we get into what they do with it, I want to show you what these two criminal masterminds look like. This is Sister Mary and this is a picture of Sister Chang. So anyway, Mary and Chang steal this money and they're doing all kinds of stuff with it. They're going to Vegas. They're taking trips to Lake Tahoe, and not just to see the sites and go on vacation, but also to hit up the casinos. Because like I said, home girl loves to gamble. And apparently she's really good at poker? Like that's her thing? Which is just hilarious to imagine a nun sitting at a poker table whooping everyone's ass.

Anyway, when they're not gambling, they're racking up tons of credit card charges, which of course they pay off with the money they're stealing from the school. Now eventually, the two sisters even move out of Catholic Church House. and they start living together in a nice gated neighborhood. Roommates. Not to mention, each of them drives a brand new Volvo. Because of course they do. And yes, over time, some parents start to notice some kind of odd things going on with the sisters.

You know, like that they're traveling a lot and going to Las Vegas and taking trips to Lake Tahoe. Or that when the school has a fundraiser and they all play poker for that fundraiser, Sister Mary ends up kicking everyone's ass at the game. Like, people notice this stuff. but no one really suspects anything because Sister Chang is just like, oh, I have a rich uncle and he provides for us. That's how we have these Volvos. And I guess people just believe it.

And to make it worse, Sister Mary is kind of in charge of everything at the school, like the money, the choosing of the staff, so there's not really anyone there breathing down her neck, making sure that all the funds are accounted for. And plus, they all trust her. I mean, she's an elderly nun. Why wouldn't they? And so Sister Mary and Sister

Chang's scam goes on for years, more than a decade, maybe close to two decades, and no one suspects a thing. And by the way, it's not like the school is super wealthy or anything like that, this school is actually broke as f***. Like sometimes the students' parents will ask like, hey, can the kids get new textbooks or sports uniforms? Or can we get an awning so that the kids don't have to eat outside in the direct sunlight? And Sister Mary will be like, how do you expect us to pay for it?

Acting as if she isn't stealing all the money. Not only that, but she also pressures the parents into donating extra money all the time on top of the student's tuition to fund, you know, the school and also her gambling trips. And so these nuns just keep the scam going. Gambling, credit card spending, trips to Vegas, they're living the good life. Until. In 2018, it all changes because suddenly the theft just stops. But not necessarily because Sister Mary and Sister Chang have a change of heart. No, no. It's because

they announced that they've both decided to retire from the school and from teaching. You know, they're retiring together because they're roommates. So together, they put down a $7,000 deposit on a three-bedroom townhouse apartment in the neighborhood, you know, a nice place, because soon enough, they'll be retired and they're going to move there together. But here's the thing about retiring. When you run all of a business's finances like Sister Mary does and it's time to hand over the keys to the new person filling that position, it's common practice to have a financial review done so that, you know, everything transitions smoothly. And this is where it all goes wrong. Because Sister Mary has a boss. His name is Monsignor Michael Myers.

And yes, that is literally his name, his real name, and in real life he looks like this. But just for fun, we're going to make him look like this. So Monsignor Michael Myers orders a review of the school's finances because Sister Mary's leaving. Then, around the same time, a parent of one of the school's students. For whatever reason, they go to the school's admin and they ask for a copy of an old tuition check. So the school has to go and dig that up. And when the school looks at the check, they notice this check, it wasn't deposited into the school's primary bank account. it was deposited into some other bank account.

That's weird. And with Monsignor Michael Myers, financial review taking place around the same time, Sister Mary knows she's f***ed. She knows this is about to make her look real bad. So she low-key goes into the school's financial records and she starts messing with the books a little bit. She's asking other employees to change some files.

She's asking for some files to be deleted. And this, of course, really sends a huge red, flag to Michael Myers and the rest of the school admin. And so they have a forensic auditor come in and do a deep dive into the school's finances. And this forensic auditor goes back as far as she can, which actually isn't very far because I guess they don't keep bank records for much longer than a decade, or at least this school's bank doesn't. But whatever, the forensic auditor comes back and says this, at minimum, a half a million dollars has been embezzled from the school. But here's the crazy part, The school, which is the church, the church decides they don't want to file a criminal complaint against these nuns.

Like they don't want to press charges. They want to handle it internally. So these two nuns aren't going to get in trouble for essentially stealing from these elementary school kids. This is like the worst thing the Catholic Church has ever done to some kids. However, here's the problem with not reporting Marion Chang to the police. Not everyone is on board with this idea. specifically the parents. See, the church at some point has to sit the parents down

and tell them that their tuition money was being stolen for all those years. But also that they've decided that they're not going to press charges against the thieves because they want to protect the sisters and the reputation of the church or whatever. And the parents are like, the fuck you're not. And they are pissed.

And they pressure the school to finally cooperate with the police department. And over the next few years, the police gets involved, the FBI, gets involved, even the IRS investigates all this. And eventually, bam, both nuns get arrested. And I don't have mugshots of them, but here's a picture of Whoopi Goldberg in the cast of Sister Act. And so, when all is said and done, Sister Mary and Sister Chang stole over $835,000 from this elementary school. And Sister Mary ends up taking a plea deal and she gets one year in prison and for some reason, the charges are dropped.

against Sister Chang. So I guess nothing happens to her. Sister Mary probably didn't want to snitch on her. You know, because they're... Roommates.