Yale Employee Stole $40 Million From Medical School
A former Yale employee funded a lavish lifestyle in a scheme where she stole $40 million from the med school.
Yale is a big school in every aspect. As one of the richest Ivy Leagues around, the university is worth a cool $42.3 billion. As an expense to its students, the prestigious higher ed institute racks in about $76 thousand per student every year. Moreso, Yale makes about $1 million a year just in student tuition–and that’s not even counting the influx of donations. But does the school make so much money that they could so easily miss a major fraud scheme? Apparently, the answer is yes, they can. A former Yale employee recently pleaded guilty in court regarding a long-running scheme in which she stole $40 million worth of goods from the college.
As reported by NBC News, the former Yale employee conned the university’s School of Medicine out of $40 million. Jamie Petrone stole computers and other various electronics from the school and would resell the goods. Her scheme lasted over 8 years. Petrone started in the university’s medical school working in the emergency medicine department in 2008. Most recently, she was the department’s director of finance and administration. Beginning in 2013, Petrone began her lucrative scheme.
Witty in hiding finances from the school, the prosecutors detailed in court how the Yale Employee got away for so long with the ruse. Petrone would have staff members order electronic hardware such as iPads and tablets from vendors using funds from the Yale Med School. Afterward, she would arrange to have the goods shipped to an out-of-state business in New York that would then resell the goods after purchasing them from Petrone. To pay for the goods, the New York business wired money into an account for a company called Maziv Entertainment LLC. Guess who is listed as the business’s director? You guessed it, Jamie Petrone.
Taking off with $40 million over the past eight years, the former Yale employee’s mega scheme funded a luxurious lifestyle for the 42-year-old. According to court records, Petrone bought six luxury cars, multiple properties including three in Connecticut, and escapades around the world on lavish trips. So far, Petrone has had to hand over some of the luxury goods she is alleged to have bought with the stolen money. She has already agreed to hand over $560,000 that was seized from a bank account under the Maziv Entertainment LLC business name, and all six of her cars. Similarly, she has liquidated her three Connecticut properties, and a property she owns in Georgia is now also subject so seizure.
The former Yale employee is being charged in court with multiple counts. She has already pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud and one count of filing a false tax return. Prosecutors say that Petrone failed to pay taxes on the money from the stolen equipment, estimating that this cost the U.S. Treasury over $6 million. Additionally, Petrone filed false tax returns from 2013 to 2016. During those years, she claimed the costs of the stolen equipment as business expenses on her returns. The Yale employee didn’t even file taxes from 2017 to 2020.
While Petrone got to live the lavish life built on crime for a while, the Ivy League school eventually caught on to her misconduct. The investigation was said to have begun by both the FBI and the IRS in August of 2021, based on information provided by Yale. According to her lawyer, Petrone is lamenting her acts over her time at Yale. “She now looks forward towards sentencing and repairing some of the damage that has been caused,” said her lawyer, Frank J Riccio II. If found guilty, her wire fraud charge could land her a maximum prison term of 20 years, and the false tax return charge could charge her with a maximum term of three years in prison.
