NORRISTOWN — A Chester County woman is headed to jail for embezzling more than $270,000 while she was a school administrator at the Penn Christian Academy in East Norriton Township, betraying the small school community that trusted her to the point the school was forced to close.
Katherine Ann Paprocka, 38, of the unit block of Lynne Circle, Paoli, was sentenced in Montgomery County Court to 10- to-23-months in the county jail after she pleaded guilty to charges of theft by unlawful taking, theft by deception, forgery, theft by failure to make required disposition of funds received and impersonating a notary public in connection with incidents that occurred between July 2020 and December 2021 while she was employed as the senior administrator at the private, religious school.
The school could no longer operate financially and closed after the theft, according to prosecutors.
Authorities alleged Paprocka used the stolen funds for her personal benefit, including to pay for family vacations and in-vitro fertilization medical treatments.
“This is a true, direct violation of the fiduciary trust they had in you. People put their faith in you. It is a substantial property loss,” Judge Steven T. O’Neill addressed Paprocka as he imposed the sentence. “You need to be watched. You need to be held accountable.”
With a consecutive seven-year probationary term, the sentence means Paprocka will be under court supervision for about nine years.
The judge ordered Paprocka to report to jail at 6 p.m. Oct. 18.
Furthermore, Paprocka must pay $270,313 in restitution. Testimony revealed Paprocka has paid $99,000 toward that restitution under a previously proposed arrangement in advance of her sentencing hearing.
While the original arrest affidavit alleged the theft may have reached more than $579,000, the continuing investigation and forensic analysis determined some of the expenses Paprocka authorized were legitimate school expenses and so the actual amount of the theft was $270,313.
The victims in the case included former teachers and staff at the school who weren’t paid due to Paprocka’s theft. The victims, some of whom were in court to witness Paprocka’s fall from grace, have unpaid wage claims with the Department of Labor. The victims wrote letters to the judge, explaining how the theft impacted their lives.
“I heard great emotional pain. I heard betrayal. I detected anger,” said O’Neill, referring to the letters, adding the victims agonized about what happened to “their beloved school.” “Those are real emotions.”
The Arguments
Assistant District Attorney Gwendolyn Marie Kull, captain of the district attorney’s economic crime unit, sought the maximum county jail term of 11½ to 23 months for Paprocka, arguing she “exploited her position to rob the school until it was gone.”
“She took the funds from the school, from the staff and from the children to benefit herself and her family. She breached a trust. She destroyed this school community,” Kull argued to the judge. “Her actions, what she did to this school, warrants total confinement.”
In a sentencing memorandum, Kull alleged Paprocka presented herself to the school’s board of directors as a “well-educated, charming woman” who claimed she could help the school increase enrollment.
“In reality, her education was falsified and she preyed on the school in need. The school was already financially struggling before defendant was hired, and she promised to help the school turn itself around. Instead, defendant used the money she stole to fund personal ventures,” Kull wrote in the sentencing memorandum.
The school closed following the thefts as it could no longer afford to operate, which left students without classrooms, parents without childcare and staff without jobs. Employees were left in “complete financial uncertainty” and some worked for months without pay, “believing the lies that (Paprocka) told them and continuing to work and provide for the children while waiting for the defendant to work payroll out,” Kull alleged.
“Parents witnessed the detrimental impacts to their children’s learning. Defendant was supposed to be there helping and supporting the school, but she stole what little they had for herself and destroyed it,” Kull argued. “Make no mistake, the money she stole did not go to anyone’s benefit but her own.
“The students lost their beloved school. So, this really ripped apart an entire community from the children, their parents, the staff, the teachers who worked there, everyone was impacted by this in that community and that school is no longer in existence because of Katherine Paprocka’s conduct in this case,” Kull added. “What she did completely devastated and demolished that school.”
During a previous hearing, it was revealed Paprocka, while admitting guilt, told presentence interviewers that she believed she was unfairly blamed for the thefts, suggesting that she pleaded guilty to the theft charges last November only because she wanted to “be done” with the case.
“I take full responsibility for the crimes I committed and I deeply regret them,” Paprocka, appearing to weep, told the judge before the sentence was imposed, adding she has been in therapy while working through personal issues. “I have a story that’s not finished.”
Indeed, Paprocka’s legal troubles are not over as she also faces charges in Chester County Court, where she’s accused of identity theft and filing false reports with authorities. Those cases are still pending for trial, according to court records.
Defense lawyers Michael van der Veen and Adam Michael Leasure asked the judge to impose a sentence of probation or house arrest for Paprocka. They presented a mitigation report suggesting Paprocka experienced prior emotional and psychological trauma and diagnoses that contributed to her actions.
While the judge said jail time was warranted he indicated Paprocka could be made eligible for early parole on electronic monitoring but only after serving six months behind bars and having a good conduct record while in jail.
The Investigation
Paprocka was fired Dec. 17, 2021, “because of her suspected involvement in the embezzling and co-mingling of school funds,” county Detective Dirk Boughter and East Norriton Detective Cristie Soto wrote in a criminal complaint.
The investigation began in October 2021, after East Norriton police were contacted by a major donor of the school regarding possible embezzlement and co-mingling of funds by Paprocka, according to the arrest affidavit.
The donor had documents from a private inquiry into funding irregularities that she shared with police, which showed that there were regular payments to a crowdfunding platform as well as three other small-business lenders that help organizations that don’t qualify for traditional bank financing.
Loans with all four lenders were electronically signed by Paprocka and listed her as the “Senior Administrator and Owner” or “Executive Director and Owner” of Penn Christian Academy. However, as a non-profit educational institution, Penn Christian Academy did not have ownership.
Additionally, the information provided to investigators showed that $62,974.79 had been paid to Paprocka’s American Express credit card and when school officials requested information about those expenses, Paprocka only submitted approximately $12,000 in school-related expenses, according to court papers.
“This investigation utilized various interviews of persons cooperating in the investigation and analysis of data from various bank records, credit card records and school records,” Boughter and Soto wrote in court documents.
Paprocka carried out the fraudulent activities by assuming the identities or forging the signatures of multiple employees and volunteers of the school, including obtaining credit cards in the names of several employees without their knowledge or consent, detectives alleged.
Paprocka reportedly claimed to be the majority owner of the non-profit school to secure payroll funding and mismanaged hundreds of thousands of dollars that belonged to Penn Christian Academy.
“All of these fraudulent activities occurred around the same time that Katie Paprocka took family vacations to Clearwater, Florida, and London, England, as well as received expensive in-vitro fertilization treatments,” Boughter and Soto alleged.
Investigators alleged Paprocka also used the stolen funds for rental property payments, car rentals, clothing purchases, restaurant meals and Amazon purchases.
Source: Berkshire mont