Jamie Petrone: Yale Med School administrator STOLE electronics worth $40M over 8 years
A former Yale University administrator stole $40 million worth of computers and electronic equipment from the institution, which she then sold to fund her lavish lifestyle. Jamie Petrone, 42, who was an administrator at Yale University School of Medicine, carried on the fraud for over eight years before she was caught.
On Monday, March 28, a Justice Department news release said Petrone, from Lithia Springs, Georgia, had pleaded guilty in federal court to wire fraud and tax charges related to her years-long scheme. She was arrested in September 2021, and could face up to 23 years in prison when she is sentenced for her crimes on June 29, the US Attorney's Office for the District of Connecticut said in a statement.
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The former administrator stole more than $40 million worth of electronics over eight years. She used the stolen funds to treat herself to lavish vacations and luxury cars; she also bought expensive properties and other items with the money.
Reportedly, Petrone started the scheme in 2013 when she was employed as the director of finance and administration for the school's Department of Emergency Medicine.
In her role as finance director, Petrone was authorized to make purchases for the department as long as the expenses were below $10,000. As stated by prosecutors, Petrone abused her rights as financial director when she started placing orders or asking others working for her to order "millions of dollars of electronic hardware from Yale vendors using Yale Med funds."
These purchases reportedly included electronic appliances and devices like Microsoft Surface Pro tablets and iPads. The statement said she "arranged to ship the stolen hardware to an out-of-state business in exchange for money."
To get away with this, Petrone would break up her purchases into orders of $10,000 so that the approval of these transactions would be smooth. For the money she was making by selling the goods, she started a company account in the name of Maziv Entertainment LLC. This is where the money from out of state businesses was transferred.
She caused a loss of $40,504,200 to Yale but also $6,416,618 to the US Treasury as she did not pay any taxes on the money she made on the stolen equipment.
As part of her plea, she agreed to forfeit $560,000 that was seized from Maziv Entertainment LLC bank account. Additionally, vehicles and property including a Mercedes-Benz G550, a Land Rover, a Cadillac Escalade Premium, a Mercedes Benz Model E450A, a Cadillac Escalade 4-Door Sport, a Dodge Charger, and three Connecticut properties will be taken away from her.