Former Yale Staffer Pleads Guilty To $40M Equipment Theft: Feds

NEW HAVEN, CT — Employed by the Yale School of Medicine for years, Jamie Petrone, 41, pleaded guilty to stealing, and then selling, some $40 million worth of medical equipment, the U.S. Department of Justice and the FBI announced.

Federal prosecutors said she used the money she made selling the equipment she stole to pay for pricey luxury cars, to buy property in Connecticut and Georgia, and for travel.

Petrone, formerly of Naugatuck, pleaded guilty in Hartford federal court to wire fraud and filing false tax returns. She faces up to 23 years in federal prison when she's sentenced in June.

For three years, prosecutors said, she failed to pay taxes on the money she received from selling the stolen equipment; she filed false federal tax returns from 2013 through 2016 where she "falsely claimed as business expenses the costs of the stolen equipment." She also failed to file any federal tax returns for the 2017 through 2020 tax years. Prosecutors said she caused a "loss of $6,416,618 to the U.S. Treasury."

According to the U. S. Attorney for Connecticut, Petrone must turn over 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 must liquidate three Connecticut properties that she owns or co-owns to help "satisfy her restitution obligation," the Justice Department noted, and a property she owns in Georgia is also subject to seizure and liquidation.

The scheme

According to court documents and statements made in court, beginning in approximately 2008, Petrone was employed by the Yale University School of Medicine, 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 responsibilities, prosecutors said, Petrone had authority to make and authorize certain purchases for departmental needs as long as the purchase amount was below $10,000.

Prosecutors said that beginning at least as early as 2013, Petrone "engaged in 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 then arranged to ship the stolen hardware to an out-of-state business in exchange for money, prosecutors said.

As part of the scheme, Petrone "falsely represented" on 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, per court records.

The out-of-state business, prosecutors said, which resold the electronic equipment to customers, paid Petrone by wiring funds into an account of a company in which she is a principal, Maziv Entertainment LLC. She's "agreed to forfeit" $560,421.14 from that LLC.

Petrone was arrested by criminal complaint on Sept. 3, 2021. She's out on a $1 million bond pending sentencing.