A Florida woman who stole more than $875,000 from a church in which she served as its finance and records manager has been sentenced to serve 27 months in prison for her crimes.
U.S. District Judge Steven D. Merryday sentenced Heather Darrey, a 45-year-old resident of Tampa, to 27 months in federal prison for wire fraud, according to a Thursday statement from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Middle District of Florida.
Additionally, Darrey was ordered to forfeit $875,323.19, which was the total she embezzled from the church while working there.
This case was investigated by the U.S. Secret Service and the Tampa Police Department and prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Greg Pizzo, Suzanne Nebesky and Jordan Howard.
The Rev. Leonard J.M. Plazewski, pastor of Christ the King, wrote in a statement published by The Tampa Bay Times that he felt betrayed by Darrey and could not understand her reasons.
"So many of my parishioners expressed to me that what upset them the most was not the theft itself, nor even the gross amount of the theft, (but) rather the identity of the perpetrator," Plazewski wrote. "This feels akin to a member of one's own family stealing from you and for no good reason."
According to court documents, Darrey served as the church's finance manager for several years. She used her position to withdraw large sums of money from the church's business bank account and deposit them in her personal account and others.
Darrey entered false data into the church's accounting software system to hide her theft, which was initially tallied to be around $775,000 but later revealed to be over $875,000.
Darrey mostly spent the funds to pay for her mortgage, car and boat loans as well as bills for clothing, concert tickets, restaurants and vacations, according to legal documents. The theft was believed to have taken place from October 2023 to March.
In May, news broke that an unnamed person, later revealed to be Darrey, stole at least $775,000 from the church, apparently using a major construction project on the congregation's youth center to help conceal the theft.
The Catholic Diocese of St. Petersburg said in a statement given to 10 Tampa Bay in May that the theft did not involve the compromising of any parishioners' personal information and that the congregation was made aware of what happened earlier that month.
Darrey pleaded guilty in June, with a plea deal noting that she faced "a maximum sentence of 20 years of imprisonment," a maximum $250,000 fine and "a term of supervised release of not more than three years" for her crimes.
Defense attorney Scott Boardman argued that Darrey's crime was a reaction to the stress she was experiencing due to a family member's medical problems and attempted to get her a lighter sentence, claiming that the public shame over the crime was enough of a punishment.
"Heather Darrey is a loving and supportive mother and wife," Boardman argued in a sentencing memo, as quoted by the Tampa Bay Times. "She appreciates fully the impact of her behavior."
