A 57-year-old Jerseyville woman will spend 63 months in federal prison for stealing more than $4.5 million from the bank where she had been employed since 1976.

Mary Susan Becker, a former executive vice president of the Jersey State Bank, was sentenced in federal court Tuesday by U.S. District Judge Michael J. Reagan. Occasionally, the medium-build, red-headed woman who was wearing black leaned in to whisper to her attorney.

Just before Reagan pronounced her sentence, Becker walked to the lectern and wept openly as she described herself as a woman who had always had low self-esteem, someone who tried to buy friendship.

Becker said she wanted to make friends and family happy. Now, she knows that material things won't make her a better mother or friend, she told Reagan.

"I learned that friends and family don't love you for material things you give, they love you just for who you are. My mom recently passed away. I miss her very much. I disappointed her so much. She wanted to be here," a sobbing Becker told Reagan.

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