- Jamie Petron, a former Yale administrator, pleaded guilty to wire fraud Monday, NPR reported.
- Prosecutors said she resold stolen electronic equipment and funded a lavish lifestyle with the profits.
- She turned over assets including a Mercedes-Benz G550 and properties in Connecticut.
A former Yale administrator, Jamie Petrone, stole more than $40 million in electronics from the university and used them to fund a lavish lifestyle, prosecutors said in a release Monday,
Petrone pleaded guilty in federal court on Monday to two counts of wire fraud and for filing a false tax return for her part in the scheme, NPR reported.
"Beginning at least as early as 2013, Petrone engaged in a scheme whereby she ordered, or caused others working for her to order, millions of dollars of electronic hardware from Yale vendors using Yale Med funds and arranged to ship the stolen hardware to an out-of-state business in exchange for money," said the release from the U.S. Attorney's Office in Connecticut.
At the Yale University School of Medicine, Petrone had the authority to buy electronic equipment in orders less than $10,000 and would do so periodically, even inventing studies that the technology was supposed to be used for. The business on the other end would resell the electronics and then wire her a portion of the funds to her Maziv Entertainment LLC company account.
Prosecutors added the equipment stolen amounts to about $40 million in losses for Yale. Petrone used the profits, they said, to fund a lavish lifestyle, including real estate, cars, and travel.
Petrone agreed to turn over over $500,000 in her LLC's bank account, plus six cars: a 2014 Mercedes-Benz G550, 2017 Land Rover, a 2015 Cadillac Escalade Premium, a 2020 Mercedes Benz Model E450A, a 2016 Cadillac Escalade, and a 2018 Dodge Charger.
Prosecutors said Petrone would liquidate her three properties in Connecticut and potentially might have to for another in Georgia, to meet her "restitution obligation," which refers to reimbursing the victim of a crime one committed.
Her illegal side hustle went on until August 2021, NPR reported, citing court documents. An anonymous tip told Yale officials that she was acquiring "suspiciously high volumes of computer equipment." The school looked into her records and eventually passed what was discovered to law enforcement.
Petrone was arrested in September 2021 and released on a $1 million bond, the release said. One count of wire fraud has a maximum sentence of 20 years and filing a false tax return has three. U.S. District Judge Vanessa L. Bryant is scheduled to sentence her in June 2022.