WASHINGTON -- The Episcopal Church has found that the former treasurer of its national office in New York embezzled $2.2 million over the past five years, the Washington Post reported Tuesday.

Ellen Cooke, the former official, allegedly spent the money on a farm in Virginia, a house in New Jersey, private school tuition for her sons, and jewelry, clothing, meals and trips for herself, family members and friends, according to an internal church investigation.

Cooke, in a letter to the church council, did not explicitly acknowledge wrongdoing, but she blamed her actions, which she did not specify, on a psychiatric "breakdown" caused in part by workplace stress and "the pain, abuse and powerlessness I have felt" as a lay woman on the senior church staff, the Post reported.

Cooke, in the letter released by her attorney, said any misdeeds were "blocked from memory."

The Post said Cooke had not been charged with any crime and was not under criminal investigation because the church had not brought a complaint.

The newspaper quoted the Most Rev. Edmond Browning, presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, as saying that he would decide by June whether to recommend prosecution.

Browning said the church already had secured title to the Cookes' house and farm and put the properties up for sale and would continue to work with Cooke's attorney to recover further assets, the Post reported.

The newspaper said the former church official now lives in McLean, Va., where her husband, Nicholas, is a rector at the prestigious St. John's Episcopal Church.

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