ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, July 11, 1996 TAG: 9607110066
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-8 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: NEWARK, N.J.
SOURCE: The Washington Post
Ellen F. Cooke, a college dropout from Virginia who rose to become the powerful treasurer of the national Episcopal Church, was sentenced Wednesday to five years in prison despite her claim that a psychiatric disorder caused her to embezzle $1.5 million from the church and to evade $300,000 in income taxes.
U.S. District Judge Maryanne Trump Barry, her voice edged with outrage, rejected Cooke's claim to have no memory of diverting funds over a period of five years because of mental illness.
``This defendant deliberately and meticulously, with knowledge then and now, looted the national church over a period of years for one reason and one reason only: to live the life of someone she was not,'' Barry said. The judge added that she found abhorrent ``the refusal to accept responsibility for one's actions, blaming everyone and everything, and relying on spurious psychiatric defenses.''
Cooke, 52, her face impassive and gaze fixed downward, said only, softly, ``No, your honor,'' when the judge asked if Cooke had anything to say in her own behalf. After the hearing, Cooke departed quickly through the door that leads to the judge's chambers, avoiding questions from reporters.
For eight years, Cooke was the most influential female lay official at Episcopal Church headquarters in New York City, responsible for handling millions in church investments and trusts and administering the church's operating budget. Her steady embezzlement went unnoticed until Cooke moved from Montclair, N.J., to McLean, Va., with her husband, Nicholas T. Cooke, when he was made rector of the prominent St. John's Episcopal Church there.
Many conservatives used the financial scandal as another reason to call for the ouster of the liberal-leaning Presiding Bishop Edmond L. Browning, who had hired Cooke and shielded her from early criticism.
But Episcopalians of all persuasions spoke bitterly of the necessity to prosecute Cooke to the fullest. Seven top church leaders, including Browning, sent a letter to the judge last week saying that Cooke's pilfering of money from a church charity ``to support a Pharisean lifestyle is the antithesis of the most basic teachings and tenets of our faith.''
The five-year prison sentence is 14 months longer than the maximum recommended under federal sentencing guidelines. Barry said that Cooke deserved such a harsh penalty because she had undermined the work of the church.
``I can't help but think that some things should be sacred,'' Barry said. A church ``is different from a bank. It's different from a teller taking 10 thousand bucks from the till.''
Cooke pleaded guilty in January to the tax evasion charges and to embezzling $1.5 million. No charges were brought against her husband. He is resigned from the priesthood last June.
In court Wednesday, Washington attorney Plato Cacheris, Cooke's lawyer, argued for a reduced sentence based on a diagnosis from her psychiatrist of Cyclothymic Disorder and Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder. Cacheris told the judge that Cooke is ``fundamentally [a] good lady'' who ``cracked'' under multiple stresses: a miscarriage, failed in vitro fertilization, her mother's brain surgery, her father's diagnosis with cancer, a job she wasn't qualified for, and the pressures of being a parent of three and a minister's wife.
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