Kristen Marie Battocletti, a former administrative assistant at an Alabama Catholic church, pleaded guilty to embezzling approximately $300,000 (£232,230) to fund gifts for TikTok content creators and cover personal expenses, according to The Washington Times.

Battocletti, 35, admitted to one count of wire fraud involving the misappropriation of funds from St. Francis of Assisi University Parish during her appearance in a federal courtroom in Tuscaloosa.

Court documents revealed that Battocletti orchestrated a scheme from April 2023 to October 2023 to defraud the church of hundreds of thousands of dollars. She used over $220,000 (£170,236) of the embezzled money to purchase TikTok digital coins for gifts to content creators and to pay for her personal expenses, federal authorities stated.

The indictment, announced last week by U.S. Attorney Prim Escalona for the Northern District of Alabama, detailed how Battocletti executed more than 600 unauthorised transactions as part of her fraudulent activities.

U.S. District Judge L. Scott Coogler has scheduled Battocletti’s sentencing for 26th November. She faces a potential sentence of up to 20 years in prison for the wire fraud charge, along with three years of supervised release and a fine of £250,000 (£193,450).