Barbara Snyder, an accounting clerk at St. Patrick’s Roman Catholic Church in Onalaska, Wisconsin, was convicted of stealing more than $800,000 from the church, using the money to gamble.
Anne Jungen, a reporter for the LaCrosse Tribune wrote in August, 2017:
The former accounting clerk at St. Patrick’s Roman Catholic Church in Onalaska was convicted Friday of two federal charges that accused of her stealing more than $800,000 from church donors and falsifying her tax return.
Barbara Snyder, 59, between January 2006 and December 2015 received weekly church donations and paperwork documenting the amount collected. She was responsible for retaining the paperwork, depositing collections and maintaining accounting records reported annually online to a financial services company with a server based in Ohio.
During her tenure, Snyder misappropriated $832,210 for “the purposes of wagering such funds at nearby casinos,” falsified accounting records and bank deposit slips and covered her misconduct by throwing out paperwork that documented actual church donations, according to the complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Madison.
Snyder reported an income of $162,949 on her 2015 tax return, although prosecutors contend her income “was greater than that reported,” the complaint reported.She pleaded guilty to wire fraud and making false statements on tax returns and agreed to make restitution as part of the agreement.
….
Yesterday, Snyder was sentenced to four years in prison.
A former accounting clerk at a church in Onalaska has been sentenced to four years in federal prison for stealing from her congregation.
Fifty-nine-year-old Barbara Snyder, of West Salem, was accused of stealing more than $800,000 from St. Patrick’s Roman Catholic Church when she was responsible for depositing church collections and maintaining accounting records between 2006 and 2015. Authorities said she used the money to gamble at casinos.
….
