(ANSA) - Rovigo, December 16 - A court on Monday found a man guilty of stealing money with a ruler and tape from church collection boxes in a northern Italian town. Undercover police said they caught 40-year-old Marco Tabarelli red-handed after he made the sign of the cross, knelt, lit candles, and proceeded to lower his makeshift device through the alms coin slot at the church of Santa Maria Assunta in Loreo, south of Venice. Police had been staking out the church for days after surveillance footage caught Tabarelli in November and earlier in December lifting hundreds of euros destined for the poor. A court in the nearby city of Rovigo sentenced him to five months and 10 days in jail.