ANDREWS, N.C. -- A church secretary pleaded guilty to stealing $300,000 by forging checks and falsifying financial records because she needed money to pay for her son's medical expenses, The Associated Press reported.
Nancy Brooks Denny, 45, whose son suffers from Hodgkin's disease, pleaded guilty after she was indicted May 13 by a grand jury on more than 1,000 felony charges stemming from the thefts.
"I only meant for it to be a one-time thing," Denny wrote in a letter to Superior Court Judge Ronald Payne. "I never imagined it would total what it did."
Investigators said the thefts took place over a five-year period.
Denny was sentenced to two years in prison and ordered to pay the church $150,000, an amount Payne determined she was capable of paying over the next eight years, according to the news report.
Auditors discovered the forged checks and falsified records after a building fund at First Baptist Church came up short. J.R. Marr, president of the church's board of deacons, said Denny has been a member of the church since childhood and is welcome to return. He said the church took up several offerings over the years to help her with medical bills.
