Journal News
November 8, 2011
http://www.lohud.com/article/20111109/NEWS02/111090353/Iona-College-nun
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| Sister Marie Thornton leaves U.S. District Court in Manhattan. She was sentenced Tuesday to community service for embezzling $850,000 from Iona College when she was the school's vice president of finance. / Jonathan Bandler/The Journal News |
A nun who stole more than $850,000 from Iona College to fund a gambling addiction while she was in charge of the school's finances was spared incarceration and ordered to perform 2,000 hours of community service.
At her sentencing in federal court in Manhattan on Tuesday, Sister Marie Thornton, 63, said she was deeply sorry for her crime and for the embarrassment she caused her religious order, family and friends.
"Somehow the words 'I'm sorry' fall short," she told U.S. District Judge Kimba Wood. "They don't convey the gut-wrenching sorrow I feel all day, every day."
She said she was particularly pained to have harmed "the institution I loved ... and gave my all to."
Thornton was fired as vice president of finance in 2009 when school officials learned of the crime.
But they never contacted law enforcement. The federal probe was launched after the U.S. Department of Education was tipped off when the school revealed the missing money — without naming Thornton — in its tax filings last year.
Thornton stole the money over a 10-year period by using a school credit card for personal expenses and getting reimbursed by the school with phony invoices.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Carrie Cohen said Thornton had also forged the signature of her longtime boss, school President James Liguori, to get cash payments. The prosecutor said the theft was uncovered by an employee who realized that a fax number on a vendor's invoice was a number at the college.
Sentencing guidelines called for a prison term of 2 1/2 to 3 years. Cohen argued for some incarceration, calling Thornton's crime an "ongoing, systematic, very extensive fraud," and said that not sending her to prison sent the wrong message to the public.
The judge, however, said it appeared Thornton had been rehabilitated through extensive treatment for her addiction and that she has already been punished enough by the strict oversight she must endure from her religious order in Philadelphia, the Sisters of St. Joseph.
Wood suggested that Thornton was kept in solitary confinement and had been shunned.
But Sister Connie Trainor, a nun from the order who accompanied Thornton to New York, raised her hand and asked to speak. She said Thornton was not kept alone. The defendant had not been shunned, but "in her own shame she has chosen to withdraw," Trainor said.
Trainor said she interrupted to set the record straight.
"I didn't want it to sound like the 1500s," she said.
Defense lawyer Sanford Talkin said Thornton had come clean about her crime once caught and immediately sought treatment for gambling. Among the letters he submitted to Wood on behalf of her were some from former students and from people who had been in treatment with her.
A difficult childhood was alluded to but no details were given.
Talkin said Thornton had become addicted to gambling for "deep-rooted reasons" that had nothing to do with having money or buying expensive things. It helped her "stop the suffering," Talkin said, and gave her a feeling of freedom. "It (was) about her for a change," he said.
Thornton was arrested a year ago and pleaded guilty in March.
Her sentencing was postponed several times at the defense's request, including twice for medical reasons as she had cataract surgery and a double-hip replacement over the summer.
Thornton was Liguori's assistant during the 1990s before her promotion to the school's top financial position.
Iona officials have insisted that safeguards were put in place once the theft was discovered to prevent similar occurrences. The college recovered $500,000 through its insurance.
Wood ordered Thornton to repay the balance of what she took, but there was little chance she could reach $350,000. Cohen said Iona was not interested in further repayment.
When Wood asked whether that was out of sorrow and pity for the defendant, Cohen said it was.
Talkin said Iona is a religious institution that believes in mercy and was "practicing what it preaches."
The community service will be part of three years of supervised release. Wood said it should make use of Thornton's talent as an educator.
But it remained to be seen what her superiors in Philadelphia, who have so far barred Thornton from returning to work, would allow her to do.
Talkin said her ideal community service would be returning to the New Rochelle college.
"She would love to serve the Iona community, but I don't think that's very practical," he said.
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