The Manhattan district attorney’s office on Monday arrested a Bronx woman who is accused of stealing more than $1 million from the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York when she worked in the archdiocese’s finance office, law enforcement officials and church leaders said.

The woman, Anita Collins, 67, had been previously convicted of grand larceny in one case and had pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor in another case, but the archdiocese said it did not know of those legal troubles when she was hired, because she did not undergo a background check.

Ms. Collins worked at the headquarters of the archdiocese, at 1011 First Avenue in Manhattan, for more than eight years, first in accounts payable for the education finance office, and then for the chancery, the main office that manages the archdiocese’s extensive finances.

A law enforcement official said that though she appeared to colleagues as a quiet, unassuming woman, Ms. Collins used her position to carry out a sophisticated fraud that consisted in part of billing the archdiocese for nonexistent services and channeling the money into accounts she controlled. Because checks of $2,500 or less did not require approval from a supervisor, Ms. Collins kept the payments just under that amount, issuing over 450 such checks to herself over seven years, according to the official, Adam Kaufmann, the chief of investigations for the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr.

“Every entity has controls in place to try to protect themselves, and the sad thing is that if you’ve got a corrupt employee they’ll find a way around the controls,” Mr. Kaufmann added. Most of the money, he said in an e-mail, was spent on mortgage payments and on “a lifestyle that was not extravagant but was far beyond her lawful means.”

Joseph Zwilling, a spokesman for the archdiocese, said the scheme diverted money “designated for the purpose of helping to provide Catholic education.”

Questions were raised during a routine audit, officials said, and Ms. Collins was confronted about the missing money in December. She was then fired.

When she was hired in the summer of 2003, the archdiocese did not regularly conduct criminal background checks on all of its employees, and her past convictions were not noticed, Mr. Zwilling said.

via New York Archdiocese Bookkeeper Accused of Stealing $1 Million – NYTimes.com.

Is this woman going to hell? Is stealing from the Catholic Church really stealing? If she confesses will Jesus forgive her? Will the Church?

Who the fuck cares? I am kind of impressed that she could get away with it for so long. And that she was able to get a job after being convicted of stealing from her previous employer. She must be a very charming woman.

But I think the real crime here is that she was working at 67 years old. If she had stolen enough money to retire on from her last job, she would never have been in the position to steal even more.

She stole a million dollars. That seems like a lot, but in comparison to Jon Corzine’s MF Global stealing $1.2 billion, it’s is spit in the ocean.

And compared to Mitt Romney “earning” $20 million in  year where he didn’t have a job, well I say this old goat worked for her spoils.

I blame the system for squeezing the middle class. For forcing them to get creative in their accounting practices. For gathering up all the entrees while leaving the poor to fight over the scraps.

Mitt and Jon, get away with stealing, but because they write the rules, it isn’t called stealing and they won’t see the inside of a jail cell.

I wonder how Mitt got a hold of so much money that his big pile of green “earns” more and more each year. He went to the office everyday just like Anita Collins. But in his office was a big spigot of dollars. All he had to do was put a bucket underneath it and watch it fill. It flowed with abundance. The water pressure in his spigot was stronger ever time he went to work.

Anita Collins had to figure out how to make the spigot work for her. Her spigot trickled. She had to coax it. She had to be crafty and conniving.

I’m not saying that I approve of what she did. But for the life of me, I can’t figure out why everyone isn’t doing it. What if every working American went to work and stole a little every day? There aren’t enough jail cells to hold us all.

Let’s all Occupy the AP clerks office!