By Greg Grisolano

ggrisolano@joplinglobe.com

FRONTENAC, Kan. — With his client facing the possibility of prison time and a large fine, the attorney for a woman who was the pastoral assistant and business manager at the Catholic church in Frontenac said she will ask for forgiveness.

“This has been a very difficult time for Michelle, and our position will be to ask for understanding, mercy and forgiveness,” James Pratt, a Wichita attorney representing Lanora Michelle Driskell Spigarelli, said by phone on Thursday.

When asked whether his client was seeking those things from the court or from the members of Sacred Heart Catholic Church, Pratt declined to comment further.

Spigarelli, 43, is accused in a federal indictment of fraudulently using $74,027 in church money to pay her personal bills.

She pleaded innocent this week in U.S. District Court in Wichita to one count of mail fraud.

A federal indictment handed up May 27 alleges that she took the money between January 2006 and September 2007. The mail-fraud charge stems from her alleged use of the U.S. Postal Service to make payments.

Spigarelli’s next court appearance has not been set, according to a spokesman for U.S. Attorney Lanny Welch.

Investigators with the Crawford County Sheriff’s Department, the Kansas Bureau of Investigation and the FBI launched an investigation into the church’s finances in July 2008.

Crawford County Sheriff Sandy Horton said the investigation produced 111 separate counts of alleged fraud that were lumped into a single federal mail-fraud charge.

“The penalties for state and federal charges in this instance are very similar,” he said.

Horton said the investigation points to Spigarelli acting alone.

“At this point, this investigation is complete,” he said. “She was always the sole focus of the investigation.”

Attempts to reach various Sacred Heart board members and the parish priest, the Rev. Robert McElwee, were unsuccessful Thursday.