Buddhist Monk Gets Jail Time For Gambling Away $260,000 In Temple Funds

It can happen to the best of us and not even the ‘holy’ ones are safe from the dark touch of the gambling addiction.

According to NOLA.com, a Buddhist monk, leader of the Vietnamese Buddhist Association of Southwest Louisiana, was sentenced to prison for gambling away $263,463.36 in temple funds. He was first arrested last year, in September, in New York and accused of wire fraud.

Khang Nguyen Le admitted he had a gambling problem that goes way back to 2011, shortly after he arrived in the US from Vietnam. According to the US authorities, he regularly attended a local casino in Lake Charles where he would spend up to $10,000 at the blackjack tables. To further feed his addiction - he had a monthly salary of just $1,000 at the temple - between January 2013 and August 2014, he defrauded the Buddhist association’s bank account of over $260,000 and lost it all at blackjack.

Le hid his addiction the whole time and the members of the congregation didn’t suspect a thing. He chose his table carefully away from the crowd to avoid being seen by anybody he knew. He also gave the congregation false financial facts in an attempt to not get caught. In the end though, the automated teller machines and the casino tellers told the whole truth. The authorities started suspecting the Vietnamese man earlier in 2014 but they needed more than year to gather enough evidence to arrest him and accuse him of fraud.

Initially, Le pleaded not guilty for wire fraud in February 2016 as he didn’t understand the nature of the accusations. He said:

Maybe it wasn’t, but he did end up losing it all and now he must pay for it, not only in front of his God but also in front of his congregation and the US Justice system. He will be imprisoned for 30 months and after release he will most likely be deported back to Vietnam.