Ex-employee admits to stealing $300K from church to buy gifts for TikTokers
Battocletti made more than 600 unauthorized transactions between the church and her own account
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A former staffer at an Alabama church has pleaded guilty to stealing $300,000 from her employer to buy gifts for TikTokers she liked.
Kristen Marie Battocletti, 35, stole the staggering amount of cash from St. Francis of Assisi University Parish in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, between April and October of 2023, according to the Department of Justice.
Battocletti formerly served as an administrative assistant at the church, according to the US attorney’s office in Alabama’s northern district. She reportedly used the access granted by her job to make more than 600 unauthorized transactions with church funds, AL.com reports.
She spent approximately $220,000 on herself and on TikTok Coins, which are an in-app currency that users can spend on gifts for their favorite creators.
On Tuesday, Battocletti pleaded guilty to a single count of wire fraud.
According to the Alabama DA's office, the maximum penalty for wire fraud is 20 years in prison, with three years of supervised release, as well as a $250,000 fine.
Battocletti is scheduled to be sentenced on November 26, according to AL.com.
She's not the only one to plead guilty to swiping hundreds of thousands from her church this month.
Next door in Missouri, a priest pleaded guilty in early July to stealing $300,000 from his church, according to the Catholic News Agency.
Father Ignazio Medina led the flock at St. Stanislaus Catholic Church in Wardsville for 10 years between 2013 and 2021, according to the US Attorney’s Office for Missouri’s Western District.
Officials at the church began noticing “financial irregularities” in 2018, and upon further investigation located a “bank account that was not previously reported” in the church’s financial documents.
By 2020, the secret account had almost $360,000 in it. When Medina moved to a new parish in 2021, he emptied the account, sending $100,000 to his sister in Arizona and pocketing the rest.
Prosecutors said Medina tried to explain away the situation when he "claimed the bank account was funded by donations that were not intended for the parish itself but rather were intended for his own discretionary use.”
Parishioners who spoke to investigators made clear their donations had not been intended for use by Medina for his own purposes.
Medina will face up to 10 years in prison, according to prosecutors.