Alabama church employee pleads guilty to stealing $300,000 from parish for TikTok creators

CNA Staff, Jul 24, 2024 / 14:48 pm (CNA).

A former Catholic parish employee in Alabama this week pleaded guilty to stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from her church in order to send money to TikTok content creators.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Alabama announced on Tuesday that 35-year-old Kristen Marie Battocletti had been charged with, and agreed to plead guilty to, embezzling funds from St. Francis of Assisi University Parish in Tuscaloosa.

Battocletti officially pleaded guilty to the charges in court on Tuesday, according to media reports.

The prosecutor’s office said Battocletti engaged in the fraud scheme from April–October 2023. She “stole approximately $300,000 from St. Francis, using the funds to purchase more than $220,000 in TikTok Coins and to pay personal expenses.”

TikTok “coins” are “virtual items that can be purchased by users” of the social media site in order to “activate or access other virtual items or services,” according to the social media website.

“Battocletti used the TikTok Coins to send digital gifts to TikTok content creators,” the U.S. attorney’s office said.

The former parish worker faces 20 years in prison, three years of supervised release, and $250,000 in fines, according to the prosecutor.

This is not the only theft of U.S. church funds prosecuted by authorities in recent days.

Earlier this month a priest in Missouri pleaded guilty to stealing $300,000 from a church at which he was pastor for nearly a decade.

A Pennsylvania priest, meanwhile, was arrested in April after police say he misused tens of thousands of dollars in parish funds to purchase video games.