Woman who scammed nuns gets prison
The Pewaukee Discalced Carmelite nuns had planned to remodel their infirmary to provide wheelchair access for a number of elderly sisters, but instead the order gave more than $800,000 to what they thought were an African brother and sister fleeing political oppression.
The so-called Kenyan siblings were actually a married couple who first knocked on the order's door on Christmas Eve 2004 asking for help and telling the sisters they would be killed if the pair returned to Africa.
Instead the husband and wife Edward Bosire, 40, and Angela Martin-Mulu, 36, of Chicago used the funds to finance two apartments, including one on Chicago's high-end Goldcoast, and gambled most of the money away in casinos.
Angela Martin-Mulu, 36, was sentenced Thursday by U.S. District Judge Charles Clevert to 41 months in prison for scamming the Carmelite nuns and other organizations out of about $1.1 million. Her husband Edward Bosire, 40, will be sentenced Feb. 19.
Each pleaded guilty to fraud in June and agreed to pay back more than $981,000 in restitution.
Clevert said religious organizations are not the only victims of this crime. By damaging the trust of the priests, nuns and others who help, the truly needy who knock on the doors of these religious orders might not get the help they need, he said.
Clevert said Martin-Mulu took advantage of these orders "all for the fleeting pleasure of gambling and enjoying the bright lights, noise and commotion of casinos."
Along with the Pewaukee monastery, the couple scammed numerous other religious groups and churches, including an order of Illinois nuns that gave $200,000.
Martin-Mulu and Bosire first visited the Carmelite nuns in December 2004. Martin-Mulu told the nuns they fled Kenya because her father was a government official and was killed, and if they returned they, too, would be killed. The couple said they were homeless and illegally in the country.
Sister Mary Agnes Kramer, spokeswoman for the monastery, said the order checked with the couple's lawyer and did interviews before they gave them a penny because they had been saving the money to update the infirmary's bathrooms and expand doorways that had been built in the 1950s. The Carmelites were told Martin-Mulu and Bosire were honorable people.
Federal authorities were tipped off about the possible scam in April 2008 and learned the couple came to the U.S. in 1999, were married in Illinois in 2004 and received political asylum in 2007. Authorities also learned Martin-Mulu's father was a government official, but he died in a Nairobi hospital from high blood pressure and a ruptured vein.
The couple repeatedly contacted the Pewaukee nuns either in person or by phone and sought money to pay for medical expenses, rent and tuition for Roosevelt University in Chicago, at which neither was enrolled.
Authorities checked hospitals in Green Bay and Chicago, but hospital records show that little or no medical services were provided to the couple, and for those times when service was provided, most of the bills had been unpaid.
U.S. District Attorney Gordon Giampietro said that less than $1,000 was used for medical bills.
Giampietro read from a Kenyan priest's letter that said Martin-Mulu also scammed religious organizations in Africa in the mid '90s.
"In the U.S. Attorney's office we have a saying that fraud is not a crime, it's a lifestyle," Giampietro said. In Martin Mulu's case, "it's a lifestyle that spans two continents," he said.
Martin-Mulu's attorney, Susan Karaskiewicz, said her client suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and it manifested into gambling.
Martin-Mulu was born into wealth and privilege, but struggled to resist the tradition of female genital mutilation and constantly lived in fear, her attorney said.
Martin-Mulu was kidnapped, tortured and disfigured when she resisted, Karaskiewicz said. While her father was alive, he protected her, but after his death she fell apart and became depressed.
The husband and wife were desperate as they waited idly in the U.S. for their papers.
Giampietro said Martin-Mulu's live experience, makes the crimes that much more egregious.
"She took advantage of the kind-hearted faithful," said Giampietro.
With a thick accent, the polite Martin-Mulu apologized to the court for her actions and asked for the opportunity to help others in similar situations. She promised the court she would not choose the same path again.
"I am crying and asking (for) mercy to give us the chance once more," Martin-Mulu said.
Clevert said Martin-Mulu no doubt has had some personal struggles.
"You've lost your father, whom you loved, you lost your mother, you've suffered disfigurement, and you fled your home country for various reasons," he said.
Clevert went on to say, though, that Martin-Mulu had enjoyed privilege and a measure of financial well-being, "but you're also a person who has squandered what some may consider a king's ransom."
Kramer said there will always be sadness in terms of Martin-Mulu and Bosire.
"God gave them such great gifts and talents that could have been used for good," she said.
The sisters pray daily that there is a conversion in their hearts and lives.
"We don't want them to be lost eternally," Kramer said.
Plans for an updated infirmary are on hold because of the funding, but thankfully, God is keeping everyone healthy right now, she said.
"We know in God's time it will come about," said Kramer.
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