A former Yale employee has pleaded guilty to stealing $40 million (yes, you read that right) from the Yale School of Medicine to fund her lavish lifestyle over nearly a ten-year period! The employee - named Jamie Petrone-Codrington- was released on a $1 million bond. Wonder how she paid.
Deets inside…
Scammery is at an all-time high! And it seems, for certain folks, it’s a tad easier to keep the scheme going because folks aren’t asking questions.
A former Yale School of Medicine employee had been stealing MILLIONS of the dollars in computer and electronic software from the school over a nearly ten-year period. The former employee - named Jamie Petrone-Codrington - pleaded guilty to fraud and tax offenses after being accused of stealing $40 million from the medical school.
The woman was charged with mail fraud, which carries a maximum term of imprisonment of 20 years; wire fraud, which carries a maximum term of imprisonment of 20 years; and money laundering, which carries a maximum term of imprisonment of 10 years.
In September 2021, the 41-year-old woman surrendered to law enforcement and was released on a $1 million bond! We wonder if she used the money she allegedly stole to post bond.
In the criminal complaint, it’s alleged Jamie was employed by the Yale University School of Medicine (“Yale Med”), Department of Emergency Medicine in 2008 where she mostly served as the Director of Finance and Administration.
The woman’s job was to make and authorize certain purchases for departmental needs as long as the purchase amount stayed below $10,000. It’s alleged the money scheme began in 2013 when she illegally ordered or caused others working for her, to order millions of dollars of computer 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.
It’s further alleged that Jamie falsified Yale internal forms and in electronic communications that the hardware was for specified Yale Med needs, such as particular medical studies, and she broke up the fraudulent purchases into orders below the $10,000 threshold that would require additional approval. The out-of-state business, which resold the computer hardware to customers, paid Jamieby wiring funds into an account of a company in which she is a principal.
Yale Med School Employee Charged with Stealing and Selling Millions of Dollars in Computer Hardware: Jamie Petrone-Codrington of Naugatuck has been charged with fraud and money laundering offenses related to the theft of millions of dollars of computer ... https://t.co/BXouEFUN2Z
— FBI New Haven (@FBINewHaven) September 7, 2021
According to the DOJ press release, Jamie caused a loss of approximately $40,504,200 to Yale and a loss of $6,416,618 to the U.S. Treasury. Damn!
The alleged Yale scammer used the money made from the stolen equipment to buy real estate, travel and luxury cars, including a 2014 Mercedes-Benz G550, a 2017 Land Rover Range Rover Sv Autobiography, a 2015 Cadillac Escalade Premium, a 2020 Mercedes Benz Model E450A, a 2016 Cadillac Escalade and a 2018 Dodge Charger. She also has agreed to liquidate three Connecticut properties that she owns or co-owns to help satisfy her restitution obligation. A property she owns in Georgia is also subject to seizure and liquidation.
The government seized $560,421.14 from the Maziv Entertainment LLC bank account. Obviously, she didn’t pay taxes on the money received from the stolen equipment. She falsified federal tax returns for the 2013 through 2016 tax years in which she claimed as business expenses the costs of the stolen equipment, and failed to file any federal tax returns for the 2017 through 2020 tax years, according to the DOJ press release. This caused a loss of $6,416,618 to the U.S. Treasury.
“Petrone-Codrington pled guilty to one count of wire fraud and one count of filing a false tax return. She will be sentenced at a later date and will pay restitution to Yale University and the IRS,” University spokesperson Karen Peart said. “Yale initially alerted authorities to evidence of suspected criminal behavior last year and fully cooperated throughout the investigation. The University thanks local law enforcement, the FBI, and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for their handling of the case. Since the incident, Yale has worked to identify and correct gaps in its internal financial controls.”
How did she get caught? The school received an anonymous tip that Jamie was “ordering suspiciously high volumes of computer equipment, some of which was placed into her personal vehicle.”
Womp. Petrone-Codrington is scheduled to be sentenced by the U.S. District Judge Vanessa L. Bryant on June 29, 2022.
Photo: f11photo/Shutterstock
