HARTFORD, Conn. — A former employee of the Yale School of Medicine pleaded guilty to fraud and tax charges in connection to her theft of over $40 million in electronic equipment from her employer.
Jamie Petrone, 42, of Lithia Springs, Georgia, formerly of Naugatuck, pleaded guilty Monday. She was arrested last September. The charge carries a maximum of 20 years, and one count of filing a false tax return, which carries a maximum of three years. She is scheduled to be sentenced on June 29.
Authorities said Petrone was employed by the Yale University School of Medicine starting in 2008. She worked in the Department of Emergency Medicine, and most recently served as the Director of Finance and Administration for the Department of Emergency Medicine.
As part of her job, Petrone could make and authorize certain purchases for departmental needs as long as the purchase amount was below $10,000, officials said.
As early as 2013, Petrone started a scheme where she ordered, or had others working for her 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.
Officials said Petrone lied on Yale internal forms and in electronic communications that the hardware was for Yale Med needs, such as particular medical studies. She also broke up the fraudulent purchases into orders below $10,000 so they would not require additional approval.
The out-of-state business then resold the electronic equipment to customers and paid Petrone by wiring funds to a company in which she is a principal, Maziv Entertainment LLC.
Federal officials said the total loss of approximately $40,504,200 to Yale. They said Petrone used the money for various personal expenses, including expensive cars, real estate and travel. They said she filed false federal tax returns for the 2013 through 2016 tax years, in which she falsely 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. This caused a loss of $6,416,618 to the U.S. Treasury.
Petrone will forfeit $560,421.14 that was seized from the Maziv Entertainment LLC bank account
She will also turn over the multiple cars, including:
- 2014 Mercedes-Benz G550
- 2017 Range Rover SV Autobiography
- 2015 Cadillac Escalade Premium
- 2020 Mercedes Benz Model E450A
- 2016 Cadillac Escalade Sport
- 2018 Dodge Charger
Petrone will also sell three Connecticut properties that she owns or co-owns and turn the money over to the government. A property she owns in Georgia is also subject to seizure and liquidation.
She is free on a $1 million bond pending sentencing.
Doug Stewart is a digital content producer at FOX61 News. He can be reached at dstewart@fox61.com.
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