Eric Wang

After stealing $40 million from the Yale School of Medicine and failing to pay over $6 million in taxes, a former Yale School of Medicine administrator was sentenced to nine years in prison.

Jamie Petrone-Codrington, former lead administrator for the School of Medicine’s Department of Emergency Medicine, was arrested in Sept. 2021 by criminal complaint. According to the DOJ press release, Petrone-Codrington was sentenced on Oct. 13 to 109 months — nine years — in prison, with three years of supervised release, for fraud and tax offenses connected to her theft of $40 million from the department. 

“Yale thanks law enforcement at all levels for their handling of this case,” University spokesperson Karen Peart wrote to the News. “Since the incident, the university has adopted additional measures to detect fraud; redesigned business processes; and improved financial reporting, analytics, and training.” 

Petrone-Codrington pled guilty on March 28 to wire fraud — which carries a maximum term of imprisonment of 20 years — and to filing a false tax return — which has a maximum term of imprisonment of 3 years. Her guilty plea was part of a plea agreement where the advisory sentencing range would be between 97 and 121 months of imprisonment.

She had also agreed to forfeit $560,421.14 that was seized from the Maziv Entertainment LLC bank account, in addition to six luxury cars: a 2014 Mercedes-Benz G550, a 2017 Land Rover/Range Rover SVAutobiography, a 2015 Cadillac Escalade Premium, a 2020 Mercedes Benz Model E450A, a 2016 Cadillac Escalade (4 Door Sport) and a 2018 Dodge Charger. Furthermore, Petrone-Codgrington agreed to liquidate three Connecticut properties pursuant to her restitution obligation. A property she owns in Georgia will also be subject to seizure and liquidation.

Petrone-Codrington carried out a nearly decade-long scheme of purchasing and reselling computer and electronic hardware. 

Employed by Yale since 1999 and the Department of Emergency of Medicine since 2008, she had risen to be lead administrator and director of finance and administration for the Department of Emergency Medicine. Petrone-Codrington had the authority to make and authorize purchases for departmental needs, of amounts up to $10,000. She would use departmental funds to buy electronic hardware — such as iPads, MacBooks and cameras — and then sell the devices to out-of-state resellers. 

Petrone-Codrington would typically break up purchases into several orders so as to stay below the $10,000 threshold and avoid additional approval, and then wire the funds into an account of Maziv Entertainment LLC, a company in which she is a principal — a company owner.

Petrone-Codrington would provide false justification for the orders, sometimes doctoring emails. In one instance in Jan. 2018, Petrone-Codrington edited an email from an employee to make it appear as though they asked her to order 50 iPads for their screening purposes. She would falsely represent her purchases as being for specific medical studies and other departmental needs. She estimated that around 90 percent of her computer-related purchases were fraudulent.

According to the government’s sentencing memorandum, Petrone-Codrington would tell her customers that she was able to use her Yale affiliation to access educational discounts and overstock supplies of electronics. 

The press release also revealed that Petrone-Codrington filed false federal tax returns for the 2013 through 2016 tax years, in which she claimed the costs of the stolen equipment as business expenses. She then failed to file federal tax returns for the 2017 to 2020 tax years. This caused a total loss of $6,416,618 to the U.S. Department of the Treasury. 

Petrone-Codrington had spent over $20 million of the proceeds, with over $4 million spent on travel, almost $4 million spent on entertainment expenses and over $2.5 million spent on retail. 

Though this scheme began as early as 2013 and lasted until Aug. 2021, almost $25.5 million of the $40 million was stolen between fiscal years 2019 and 2022. 

After the plea, it was found that the $40,504,200 total that she stole from the School of Medicine also included funds from Yale New Haven Hospital.

“Today in court, Ms. Petrone profoundly apologized to Yale University for her inexcusable actions,” Frank Riccio, her attorney, wrote in an email to the Associated Press. “She continues to accept responsibility and intends on continuing with making restitution.”

The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney David E. Novick.