NEWPORT BEACH, Calif. (AP) – The wife of a Dartmouth College professor has been sentenced to six years in prison for bilking her former California church out of $320,000.

Lean (pronounced LEE ann) Granger was sentenced Wednesday after pleading guilty to the theft at Newport Harbor Lutheran Church while she was bookkeeper from 2002 to 2006. She also was ordered to pay more than $333,000 in restitution.

Prosecutors say the 45-year-old former Irvine resident forged church officials’ signatures on checks to herself and a company she started with her husband, Richard Granger. He has not been charged with any crime.

Mrs. Granger was caught when a new pastor took over and noticed bills had gone unpaid. She was arrested in March in New Hampshire.

Richard Granger came to Dartmouth in 2006 as the first director of the Neukom Institute of Computational Science at the Ivy League school. Last month, he resigned from that position because of personal reasons, the college said.

He is continuing as a faculty member in Dartmouth’s Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences and as director of the Brain Engineering Laboratory.

Lean Granger has no affiliation with Dartmouth, a spokeswoman said.

In an interview last month, James Miller, who spoke on behalf of the Newport Harbor Lutheran Church, expressed disappointment. “We trusted somebody and we don’t really have the resources to have lost,” he said.

The church went to authorities in late 2006, police said.

AP-ES-05-29-08 1440EDT