Former Holy Cross Catholic Church office manager Deborah True, 72, will no longer enjoy her Colorado retirement as she begins serving 10 years in a Florida prison for stealing nearly $700,000 from church member donations.

Court records and True’s own statements to Vero Beach Police detectives show that True collaborated with the late Fr. Richard Murphy, who died in 2020, to systematically skim thousands of dollars per month off the church’s offering plate into a secret bank account for many years.

True and Murphy came to Vero Beach as a package deal in 1997, when Murphy was re-assigned from a Martin County parish where the duo worked together.  Court records show True was a constant dining companion of Murphy, that they often vacationed together – sometimes in Vero parishioners’ northern homes – and that True was Murphy’s caregiver throughout an extended illness.

True claimed everything was done at Murphy’s direction, that he told her how much to skim off into the secret account, and how to use the money. “There were two people involved in this,” said True’s defense attorney Andrew Metcalf. “Unfortunately, my client was the only one left and she’s taken responsibility.”

Police say the church’s losses likely amount to $1.46 million or more going back to 2012, but PNC Bank had only five years of retained documents on the church’s accounts, so evidence could only be assembled to charge True with stealing $697,138.98 from 2015 to 2020.

No one spoke at last week’s sentencing hearing before Judge Robert Meadows on behalf of the church, or the thousands of parishoners who had their donations stolen. And while members of the parish have spoken off the record with this newspaper saying they had prayed for True, no one advocated for leniency on her behalf in court.

After nearly three years of the court allowing True to remain in her home in Frederick, Colo., where she has an adult son whom she has claimed is mentally challenged, while awaiting trial, True changed her plea to no contest this past May.

This saved Holy Cross, and the Diocese of Palm Beach, the disgrace of a criminal trial, which would have presumably painted the elderly priest as a full collaborator.

Members of the church council – with weak systems of internal accounting controls – never caught wind of the massive thefts, or suspected something was awry, but looked the other way. It was only after Murphy died, True retired to Colorado and a new priest and new office manager took over that the diversions began to come to light.

Court records show True – allegedly with Murphy’s full knowledge and encouragement – seized opportunities like the church’s holiest days of Christmas and Easter when lots of money flowed in, to direct more funds into the secret bank account. Bequests to the church and wire transfers of securities as donations presented other easy opportunities for theft when no one was watching.

If True, now 72 years old, makes it out of prison, she’ll be on probation for another 20 years. Judge Meadows also ordered that True pay back the stolen funds Holy Cross Catholic Church back – something that’s unlikely to happen, short of selling the $550,000 Colorado home she purchased in 2021.