Deborah True, 72, pleaded guilty in May to first degree felony grand theft in state court, admitting to stealing over $700,000 from Holy Cross Catholic Church in the Diocese of Palm Springs, Florida between 2012-2020.
Prosecutors alleged that True participated in an elaborate scheme with Fr. Richard Murphy, the deceased former pastor of the parish, to embezzle $1.5 million from the parish over an eight year period.
True served as the parish administrator and bookkeeper for Holy Cross Catholic Church in the Diocese of Palm Springs Florida between 1997-2020. She previously worked for Murphy at his prior assignment at St. Joseph parish beginning in 1983. True retired shortly after Murphy passed away in March 2020.
In addition to serving 10 years in prison, the court ordered True to pay $697,138.98 in restitution to Holy Cross Catholic Church and barred her from any interaction or communication with the parish in the future.
True argued that she had no knowledge that her actions were illegal, and that Murphy had sent her the money as a gift.
“Father Murphy was helping me in my hard times that I was having,” True told investigators. “I never gave it a thought as to where the money was from.”
“I just looked at it as a gift,” she said.
Court documents reveal that True spent a majority of the money on living expenses including Uber eats, charges to Chewy — a pet supply company — veterinary bills, and to pay off a Best Buy credit card debt and other personal bills.
Murphy and True shared a close relationship, according to court documents and True’s interview with investigators.
Murphy’s obituary stated that the priest is survived by “his long time secretary, Debbie True who became his caregiver.” In an interview with investigators, True acknowledged that the two became “very, very close friends” and “companions” and the two would take vacations together but would always get “two hotel rooms or a multi-room house.”
True told investigators that she began receiving payments from Fr. Murphy after she met him in Vero Beach in an unspecified year, and told him that her ex-husband had stopped paying child support.
“He would say, okay, go ahead, l’ll pay this one and that would relieve me,” True said. “We became very, very close friends, not intimate but he took care of me.”
According to a 2024 police report, the diocese discovered the possibility of embezzlement in late 2020, after Murphy died, vacating his office as parish pastor.
When a new pastor was appointed to the parish, a parish bank account was discovered of which the diocese had been previously unaware, and which had not previously been either audited or mentioned in parish financial reports.
The account, which was opened in 2012, listed only Murphy and True as signatories.
According to bank records, $1,466,331 of parish funds were deposited into the account. Hundreds of thousands of dollars were used to pay True’s credit card bills and loans, while nearly $150,000 was written in checks from the account to True personally, which were then deposited into her personal bank accounts.
In May 2020, two months after Murphy’s death, True closed the account, withdrawing the $811.38 balance in cash.
“In total, $549,289.62 of the funds of the Holy Cross account were used to pay off Deborah True’s personal lines of credit. An additional $147,037.98 was deposited directly into Deborah True’s personal checking accounts. $811.38 was [the] final withdrawal and closing transaction, also payable to Deborah True,” the police report explained.
“Grand total, $697,138.98.”
Because bank records from before 2015 were not available to police, it is possible more of the money was also directed to True or her creditors before that time, investigators concluded.
True told investigators that Murphy had told her that it was fine for her to use the money he gave her via the account to pay off her debts and line of credit.
“Father Murphy was very generous to a fault, but a lot of times he would do things like that for me because I put in so many days and hours in working. ‘So in your salary, you are not getting paid for it,’” True told investigators. “I did what Father Murphy told me to do. I did what he did for me.”
Available records indicate that True stole slightly less than half the money deposited into the unreported account she maintained with Murphy, suggesting that the priest may have diverted significant amounts of money from the parish elsewhere.
“That was an account that Father Murphy never reported to the diocese, and he didn't want it reported,” True told investigators.
The police report indicated that “checks addressed to him and payments made to his creditors” could be linked to the account.
“However, due to his death, no criminal investigation took place to identify an exact amount,” the report said. The police report indicated that checks from the account were only issued to Murphy and True.
True’s sentencing comes six months after Heather Darrey, a former parish administrator at Christ the King parish in Tampa Bay Florida, pleaded guilty to embezzling nearly $900,000 from her parish. Darrey was sentenced to 27 months in prison.
Robert Warren, a retired IRS investigator and professor of accounting at Radford University, said that True’s lengthy sentence is notable for two reasons.
“First, claiming that you are just doing what the priest tells you to do will not fly anymore, especially if he died leaving you holding the bag,” Warren told The Pillar. “Second, sentences in federal court are usually more lenient than in state court, especially southern "law and order" states such as Florida.”
Warren believes that the tough sentence will be a deterrent to both priests and lay parish employees.
“What should be concerning to the faithful is that this fraud scheme was not detected by the auditors or by whistleblowers at the parish. Instead, once Father Murphy died and Ms. True left the parish and no longer had control over the records, the new pastor uncovered the scheme and blew the whistle,” Warren said.
“While some may deem the sentence harsh,” Warren said, “it just may serve as the general deterrent that will keep others in parish administration from committing the same crime.”