CNA Staff, May 8, 2025 / 11:20 am (CNA).
The former administrator of a Florida Catholic parish pleaded no contest in court this month to charges that she stole hundreds of thousands of dollars from a Vero Beach church years ago.
Prosecutors had alleged in 2022 that Deborah True and Father Richard Murphy stole nearly $1.5 million in parish funds from Holy Cross Catholic Church in Vero Beach between 2015 and 2020.
Murphy died in March 2020. True, meanwhile, was charged with fraud and theft in connection with the alleged crime. She pleaded no contest to a charge of first-degree grand theft in Florida circuit court on May 1.
The former administrator faces up to a decade in prison and two decades of probation. She will also reportedly be required to pay back nearly $700,000 to the parish.
A “no contest” plea is one in which a criminal defendant neither admits to a charge nor disputes it, effectively conceding that the prosecutor has enough evidence to find him or her guilty.
Assistant State Attorney William Long told Treasure Coast Newspapers that True will be required to pay back the restitution in monthly installments or else “face being returned to prison,” according to the outlet.
The plea deal “represented both the state’s pursuit of justice and what we thought was a fair sentence as well as the interest of the victims in this matter,” Long told the news service.
Police had earlier concluded that from 2015–2020, Murphy and True had funnelled $1.5 million in parishioner donations into a bank account called “Holy Cross Catholic Church.” The account was hidden from the Diocese of Palm Beach, police said.
Authorities have not taken any action against Murphy because of his death. According to Murphy’s obituary, True was his “longtime” secretary and his caregiver. Murphy was the pastor at Holy Cross for almost 23 years, from 1997 to 2020, True told Vero News at the time of Murphy’s death.
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When I saw the headline, I thought, “Finally! [A meaningful sentence!] But let me guess, it is a layperson!” And what do you know, she is a layperson. Priests who embezzle rarely get meaningful prison sentences. One to three years for stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars seems common for priest-embezzlers. I guess laypeople have a higher culpability for theft than clergy in the eyes of the state.