Lola Taylor Rowe replied "not guilty" as a clerk read the charges against her: seven counts of embezzlement while she served as treasurer for three churches in Catawba.

Rowe, 70, maintained that she didn't think she had done anything wrong. She'd always intended to pay back the money, which a Roanoke County police investigator estimated to be $50,000.

Yet at the end of the hearing, Judge Robert "Pat" Doherty convicted her of all seven charges.

Starting in October 2003, Rowe served as treasurer for the McDonald's Mill, Catawba and Shiloh United Methodist churches, three small congregations in the Catawba area, which are officiated by the same pastor and share the same treasury fund.

Roanoke County police Sgt. Mike Poindexter testified that in November a trustee with the church contacted authorities about checks Rowe had written to herself without the church's permission.

Rowe refused to speak with police. Bank records obtained through search warrants showed that Rowe had been writing unauthorized checks for the entire time she was treasurer, Poindexter said.

Sometimes she wrote checks to cash, or to her husband. She wrote some of the checks claiming they were payments for services such as lawn care that church volunteers routinely provided for free.

Her attorney, Richard Lawrence, said Rowe used the money for medical expenses and had paid about $10,000 of it back before the police got involved.

After the hearing, church trustee Mary Sutphin, who reported Rowe to police, said she was skeptical of the claim that the money taken was used to pay medical bills.

During Rowe's tenure as treasurer, the church struggled financially and bills sometimes went unpaid. The person responsible for financial oversight over Rowe is a relative of hers by marriage and had not performed an audit in five years.

At the request of a new superintendent for the Roanoke District of United Methodist Churches, Sutphin organized an audit.

"I gave her every opportunity under the sun to say, 'I'm sorry, I took the money, let's work it out,' " Sutphin said.

Rowe's sentencing is scheduled for July 23.

Assistant Roanoke County Commonwealth's Attorney Aaron Lavinder said the office usually seeks some period of incarceration for embezzlement cases.