Give Me A Break, Monday, August 27, 2012

 Here’s a story from The Washington Post, referred to at the New Oxford Review website.
 

PHILADELPHIA — A finance executive who linked her $900,000 embezzlement from the Philadelphia archdiocese to the church’s sex-abuse scandal was sentenced Friday to two to seven years in prison.

Anita Guzzardi, 42, said she succumbed to gambling and shopping addictions after feeling betrayed by the church over the priest sex-abuse scandal.

Guzzardi had worked at the Roman Catholic archdiocese since she was 20, and was making $124,000 a year as chief financial officer when she was fired last year.

“She felt betrayed by the institution,” defense lawyer Louis R. Busico told a judge.

A prosecutor countered that Guzzardi “partie(d) for seven years on somebody else’s dime,” despite the fact she and her husband had combined incomes of more than $300,000 and no children.

I’m sorry, I know we’re not supposed to judge, and I guess if you are someone caught up in such a crime you have to come up with some sort of defense to offer at trial.  I guess.  I’ll have to say, as a former auditor, I’ve seen lots of excuses offered, but this one takes the cake.  Betrayed by the sex abuse scandal in the Church, but still able to party down.  Really?  Give me a break.

Read the whole story here.