A 68-year-old former bookkeeper for the Archdiocese of New York was sentenced Thursday to 4 1/2 to 9 years in prison for embezzling $1-million from her employer, says the New York Daily News.

Anita Collins pleaded guilty in September to grand larceny and falsifying business records. Prosecutors said that over 7 1/2 years she cut more than 450 archdiocese checks for phony expenses—always in amounts small enough to not require a supervisor’s approval—and deposited the money in her own account.

Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Lewis Bart Stone ordered Ms. Collins to repay the embezzled funds, but her attorney, Howard Simmons, said there was little chance she could make a full restitution and probably could not replay even $100,000. “Nobody can really explain what happened to the money,” he said.

Ms. Collins did spend tens of thousands of dollars on Bloomingdale’s furniture and Brooks Brothers clothes and used some of the stolen money to collect expensive handmade dolls, but neighbors said she generally lived modestly.