Where ever you are in the world, you are bound to meet die hard fans who want to see every specific team play live or see a particular performance. They will, quite literally, do anything for tickets. This includes doing criminal acts. This has been perfectly illustrated by a recent story whereby a woman stole money for WWE tickets.
The head of a German immersion pre-school in brownstone Brooklyn was arrested for embezzling nearly $3 million in tuition — and blowing thousands on tickets to pro wrestling matches and luxury travel; according to a new federal indictment.
The center was established in 2009 as New York City's first German immersion preschool, said Simona D'Souza, the founder of KinderHaus.
Murielle Misczak, the director of Kinderhaus Brooklyn on Sixth Avenue and Ninth Street in Park Slope, pulled a stone cold stunner when she allegedly spent at least $350 000 in swiped cash on tickets to exclusive WWE matches; some of which she bragged about on Instagram, according to a federal indictment released Wednesday.
Misczak, a Swiss citizen, is accused of funneling a total of $2.75 million in tuition fees to her own bank account "for her own personal use and benefit" between January 2022 and October 2025, the indictment states.
"[She] took frequent trips and vacations across the country – often every other weekend – enjoying plush resorts, VIP access to WWE events and first class amenities, much of which she documented on her public Instagram and other social media accounts," according to a lawsuit filed against her by the school in December.
Her wrestling splurges included a VIP package to take her three kids to the popular wrestling show "Monday Night Raw" and meet the pros, according to a law enforcement source.
Parents pay up to $48 000 in tuition per year at KinderHaus. Misczak was hired by the daycare in 2013 and became the director in 2020.
Like most of the teachers, she was from a German-speaking country and was sponsored on a work visa. "She would always say she loved KinderHaus," said D'Souza. "I relied on her so much."
Misczak was in charge of the school's financial accounts and managed tuition collection. However, in October 2025, D'Souza noticed something was off with the preschool's money.
Overall, Misczak allegedly blew $650 000 on travel and entertainment; $150 000 on food delivery services and hundreds of thousands of dollars on high-end luxury goods, the federal authorities said.
She covered up the theft by "manipulating" the school’s internal accounting system to falsely show that the payments had been deposited into the school’s bank account — then deleted emails that would have revealed the scheme, according to the indictment.
Misczak, who earned a paltry $40 000 annually from the school, was living far beyond her means as she paid for two apartments in Park Slope that cost her a total of $36 000 per-year; according to the lawsuit, filed in Brooklyn civil court.
When a school staffer asked how she could afford her expensive home along with jet-setting and shopping sprees with such a skimpy salary, she channeled her inner Anna Delvey and claimed to be the offspring of a wealthy Swiss family.
"When [the school] inquired about her lavish lifestyle, [she] falsely claimed that she was the beneficiary of substantial funds from her mother in Basel, Switzerland. Of course, this purported beneficiary was a ruse," the suit states.
The daycare's tuition deposits were being routed to PayPal accounts belonging to Misczak. Prosecutors said Misczak made more than 450 fraudulent payments to herself over a three-year period.
The mother is believed to have bought tickets to deluxe packages, during which the family met professional wrestlers at shows such as Monday Night Raw, a person familiar with the case told the New York Times on the condition of anonymity.
It wasn’t immediately clear how Misczak was eventually busted but the school’s principal, Simona D’Souza, learned about the scheme in October 2025 and "was forced to use her own personal savings to meet [the school’s] payroll and operational obligations," the suit states.
Misczak went through great lengths to keep the plot a secret, said the school's lawyer, including deleting e-mails about deposits she had made.
Misczak reportedly went to great lengths to hide the alleged scam, Andreas Koutsoudaki said. This included deleting tuition invoices and PayPal e-mails regarding the deposits.
"This was an engineered scheme, plain and simple," he said.
Shannon Jones, a federal prosecutor in Brooklyn, accused Misczak of spending all of the money she took from the scheme and having no savings. After being fired from the daycare, Misczak had no legal status in the U.S. and was at risk of being evicted from the two apartments she rented from the school.
Misczak, who has since been fired, was hired by the preschool in 2013 and rose ranks to become director in 2020.
She’s charged with wire fraud, money laundering and "Engaging in Monetary Transactions in Criminally Derived Property."
Misczak, a single mother, nervously fidgeted with her hands as she pleaded not guilty at her arraignment in Brooklyn federal court. She was released on a $200 000 bond, secured by a $50 000 wire transfer from her mother.
Under the terms of her release, she was ordered to surrender her passport, wear an ankle bracelet and be subject to a home curfew.
"We are heartbroken that someone we put our trust in for over a decade betrayed us in this way," D’Souza told The Post. "We are committed to restrengthening our school in light of this devastating financial loss….I hope that justice will be served and that we are able to recover some of the funds that were lost."
It is unclear why she is so enthusiastic about professional wrestling.
D'Souza hopes the daycare will recover the missing funds. She said she initially stood by Misczak amid previous complaints from parents.
She called the scheme charge by prosecutors as the "most horrifying thing that has ever happened to anyone I’ve ever known." "It was a betrayal on so many levels," she said.
"My client looks forward to a fair resolution of this matter in court," said Misczak’s lawyer, Lowell Sidney.
With all this going on, former wrestler, Maven, has claimed that WWE is in trouble.
Maven said WWE is "on the wrong track” in a YouTube video breaking down what he sees as the company’s biggest problems, pointing to the reduction of house shows as the root cause of declining match quality and weaker backstage bonds between performers.
Maven, who wrestled for WWE from 2001 to 2005, said the current talent is wrestling as much in a month as his generation wrestled in a single week. He pointed to a recent Saturday Night’s Main Event match between CM Punk and Jey Uso as an example of what happens when top performers do not get enough reps together.
"Two guys who I believe one day will be in the Hall of Fame, two guys who I know can wrestle circles around me, two guys who are at the top of their games and on a recent episode of Saturday Night’s Main Event, they put a match out that both guys in their heart of hearts probably wasn’t happy with," Maven said. "They looked sluggish. Their timing was off. They lacked any aggression, and they looked like they were still in the feeling out process of working one another."
Maven said that during his era, wrestlers would work opponents three or four times in a week on house shows before performing together on television, allowing them to remove anything that didn't look crisp and learn how their opponent moves. "When you work somebody three, maybe four times in one week, you get to figure out what works, what doesn’t work,” he said. “And you’re not feeling this out on television."
Maven cited a recent interview in which Cody Rhodes expressed similar concerns. Rhodes, who experienced the house show era firsthand before it was scaled back, said the lack of road time together hurts team bonding.
"One of the things that I really fear is it’s hard to say you’re part of a team if you’re not playing with your team all the time,” Rhodes said. “Those are a lot easier when I know you already. When it doesn’t feel obligatory. I thought for me, it was incredibly valuable. It was tight, and you learned, and there was a rhythm and it helped with the live TV matches."
Maven also criticized the structured nature of modern WWE matches, saying they look choreographed rather than like real fights.
"Every match in the WWE looks like a dance. It looks structured. It doesn’t look like free flowing, just listening to the crowd, reacting from your audience, giving what your opponent gives you," Maven said. "It looks like every move is laid out and diagrammed like routes on a map."
Maven said he has noticed wrestlers repeatedly going back to botched spots on television rather than moving on, which he called a giveaway to the audience. "If you mess up a spot, don’t go back for it," Maven said, citing advice he received early in his career from Test. "All that is, is telling your audience, ‘Hey, I messed up, but I’m going to fix it right now,’ and that’s not doing anyone any favours."
Maven also raised concerns about how expensive it has become to follow WWE. He cited streaming costs across multiple platforms, elevated ticket prices, and expensive merchandise as barriers that could drive fans away.
"There’s no reason that people should have to spend 50, 60, $100 a month strictly to professional wrestling, because what you’re going to do is you’re going to lose fans," Maven said. "Fans are going to choose another option. There is no lack of entertainment for younger viewers."
Maven said the volume of advertisements on Monday Night Raw was particularly painful. "Every time I could get into something, I was getting sold DoorDash, or I was being told to buy this or buy that," he said.
"I guarantee if you run too many ads, you run the risk of boring your fans and if you bore your fans long enough and ask for too much of their dollars, they’re going to find their entertainment options better utilized somewhere else."
Maven said if wrestling is not as accessible and affordable as it once was, the tradition of passing fandom down through families will stop. "The days of being a wrestling fan being passed down from father to son, from mother to daughter, those days are just going to stop," he said.
This story is actually quite crazy. Going this far is absurd. No one should live outside their means. They should stick to what they have. This is especially the case if you have a family. Your family would be in danger if you get caught. This is especially true if you're a single parent.
I have to agree with Maven. From what I've seen, matches do seem to be choreographed and pre-planned. There are times when surprises do happen but those are on rare occasions.
I get annoyed by the number of ads that are run. It's probably not just me. These long ad breaks can truly put off fans from watching. The increased ticket prices can add to the troubles. It'll just cause actions like the one described above.
If this trend continues, it might result in a lot of empty seats at live events.