A St. Peters mother, who used her children to obtain money for gambling has been sentenced to prison. 50-year-old Cynthia Tiemann was sentenced for forging college loans for almost $140,000 in the names of her daughters, and her mother was sentenced to five years in prison. Her mother, Jean Terneus, was at her daughter’s side at Monday's sentencing in St. Charles Circuit Court. Terneus said her daughter is a good person whose gambling addiction led her astray. Terneus told the St Louis Post Dispatch the loans have been cleared from her credit report and those of Tiemann’s daughters'.

In September, Tiemann pled guilty to seven counts of felony forgery. In exchange, prosecutors offered to ask for no more than nine years in prison. Tiemann could have asked for probation, but she chose to take the prosecutors' original offer of five years in prison. Assistant public defender Heather Donovan said her client was concerned that she could not repay the money while on probation and decided to take the five years instead of gambling on a longer sentence. Tiemann has reportedly been attending Gamblers Anonymous meetings and hopes to inspire others to get help. However, the banks who lost the money to her scheme may still sue her in civil court.