A former administrator at Yale University School of Medicine has pleaded guilty after investigators discovered she had stolen $40 million through fraud over a ten-year period, according to Connecticut's US Attorney’s Office.
42-year old Jamie Petrone began working at Yale's School of Medicine in 2008. As the director of finance for its emergency medicine department, she was authorized to purchase all the necessary equipment under $10,000 without additional permission.
The woman was charged with wire fraud and filing false tax returns and could face a prison sentence of up to 30 years. Starting in 2013, she made small purchases that included computers and other hardware using the school’s funds. Petrone would then sell them to businesses in New York and transfer the money to the account of a wedding photography and videography company she owned.
When asked to explain the spending to the university’s management, she cited certain medical research that required additional computers.
According to prosecutors, in 2021 she obtained over 8,000 tablet computers. In one 10-week period that year, she ordered $2.1 million worth of equipment. Court documents say that 90% of all of her “computer-related purchases were fraudulent,” and the total amount of stolen equipment was $40.5 million.
“Since the incident, Yale has worked to identify and correct gaps in its internal financial controls,” a Yale spokesperson said in a statement.
In addition, Petrone never declared her earnings, submitting false returns for 2013 through 2016, with no returns for the next several years. Prosecutors said she defrauded the IRS out of over $6 million.
The woman agreed to some of her estate being confiscated as part of her guilty plea, including $560,421.14 that was seized from her accounts, two $135,000 Mercedes-Benzes, a $90,000 Range Rover, two Cadillac Escalades, a Dodge Charger, and three properties in Connecticut and another in Georgia.