When U.S. Secret Service agents started investigating reports someone was going on shopping sprees with counterfeit $100 bills at Macy's stores in Palm Beach County last year, they never imagined the culprit was one of their colleagues.

Cynthia LaCroix, 51, former office administrator for the Secret Service's West Palm Beach branch, eventually admitted she had been stealing forged bills that were supposed to be burned or shredded. Though the agency is best known for protecting the president and other dignitaries, it also investigates financial crimes, fraud and counterfeiting.

Earlier this year, LaCroix pleaded guilty to possessing counterfeit notes and lying to federal investigators when they questioned her.

Authorities said LaCroix spent the phony money at local malls and pocketed authentic change. Federal prosecutors recommended she serve 12 months in federal prison.

But Friday, LaCroix's previously clean record and her tragic motive convinced U.S. District Judge Kenneth Marra to sentence her to six months of house arrest and two years of probation. He said imprisonment was unnecessary.

Sobbing as she apologized profusely in federal court in West Palm Beach on Friday afternoon, LaCroix said she stole the money so she could help her son, who struggled with drug addiction for years before dying from a drug overdose. She is now raising his two young children.

"I made really bad choices," LaCroix told the judge. "I know that saying sorry is not enough ... but I did not do it for myself."

She said she has been devastated and humbled by the loss of her son, the loss of her job, and the fact she will likely lose her government pension after 30 years of service.

La Croix initially told agents she had been taking counterfeit money for a few months but later admitted she had been taking counterfeit notes from the agency since 2010, prosecutors wrote.

"One can only imagine how much counterfeit the defendant passed in the four years before she was discovered," Assistant U.S. Attorney Alexandra Chase wrote in court records.

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