Jamie Petrone In August of 2021, an anonymous staff member
from Yale told school officials that a high-ranking administrator was stealing millions..
They claimed the thief was responsible for suspiciously large orders of computer devices
through the school's accounts.
The administrator named in the anonymous tip was Jamie Petrone.
Petrone was the director of finance and administration for the Department of Emergency Medicine at
Yale.
If you scrolled through her and her husband's Instagram, you'd think she was the CEO of
a Fortune 500 company.
His posts show off the couple's expensive possessions.
Petrone's husband, Jameys Codrington, particularly enjoyed showing off their collection of cars.
The collection included a Dodge Charger, a red and black Land Rover SV, a black Escalade
premium, a red Mercedes Benz convertible, and a white Mercedes G-wagon.
These expensive vehicles were often parked in one of Petrone's three homes, all in Connecticut,
a state famous for its high-end real estate market.
She also bought a $588,000 thousand dollar five-bed-five-bath house in Lithia Springs,
Georgia.
When Petrone wasn't in one of her four expensive homes or driving her luxury cars, she walked
around town in designer clothes.
Her favorite brand?
Louis Vuitton.
Petrone owned a Louis V purse, which matched her $1,500 pair of Louis V ankle boots.
She also had another Louis Vuitton bag worth $5,000.
Codrington, Petrone's husband, bought diamond bracelets, necklaces, and expensive clothes,
like jerseys, sneakers, and sunglasses.
Together, the couple went on lavish trips around the world.
One photo on their Instagram showed them dining at Gucci Garden, a famous restaurant In Florence,
Italy.
Petrone also flaunted her wealth by hosting dinners and lunches for her family.
An Instagram post shows Petrone posing with members of her extended family inside what
looks like a very nice kitchen.
Her family, including Codrington, thought Petrone earned her fortune from an electronics
side hustle called Maziv Entertainment that grew beyond expectations.
However, Petrone never considered quitting her administration job at Yale despite the
business's success.
No one knew Yale was her supplier—not even Yale.
$10,000 Loophole Like any other 21st-century university, Yale's
campus needs computers to run.
The school allowed certain employees to order things like computers, laptops, and tablets
for whatever needs arose.
However, they placed a $10,000 limit on IT equipment orders.
If an administrator wanted to order anything over $10,000, they needed approval from a
superior.
But the limit didn't apply to how many orders you could file at one time.
In theory, the limit was practical.
In reality, it was utterly useless.
And no Yale employee recognized the loophole more than Petrone.
Hot Tablets Yale is a 320-year-old school with $42 billion
in assets and over 4,000 academic staff members.
Their main concern isn't budgeting but providing the best academic experience possible for
their students.
That's why it took nearly a decade for anyone to notice Petrone was robbing the school blind.
Petrone bought her first load of tech devices in 2013.
The Yale administrator used her position to buy the latest trend in personal computers:
the tablet.
iPads were all the rage in the early 2010s and sold like rectangle-shaped hotcakes at
retailers like BestBuy.
Petrone had already found a retail company in New York that needed more tablets.
She then filed an order through the university for just under $10k worth of iPads and Microsoft
Surface Pros and bought them with Yale's money.
Since Petrone was an administrator for the School of Medicine, she classified the order
as necessary IT medical equipment.
However, when the "medical equipment" arrived, Petrone took the tablets home with her, then
sold the shipment to the retailer on Long Island for a 100% profit.
There was one catch: Petrone needed to trick the retailer, who couldn't know that her products
were coming from Yale.
So, to look legit to her retailer in New York, Petrone used her husband's company, Maziv
Entertainment, to receive payments.
Maziv Entertainment According to investigators, Petrone wasn't
satisfied with the one deal.
She wanted more.
So, Petrone kept ordering more IT equipment, making the same sub-$10,000 orders over and
over again.
By 2014, Petrone basically ran her own personal BestBuy.
The school didn't suspect anything, nor did the retailer question their Connecticut supplier.
To them, they were buying hot products from a company called Maziv Entertainment.
At least that's what their financial records said.
In reality, they were buying iPads stolen from Yale, the alma mater of Presidents and
renowned medical professionals.
Meanwhile, Maziv Entertainment was doing very well.
Codrington founded the company in 2003, according to his LinkedIn page.
Even though his wife and former business partner is currently on trial, Maziv Entertainment
is still going strong.
Codrington still posts regularly on their Instagram page.
But the company's best years, by far, were during the 8 year period from 2013 to 2021.
8 Years Petrone sold thousands of tablets over that
8 year period.
By 2021, she had stolen around $40 million worth of tablets, all on Yale's dollar.
And, as you already know, she made no effort to hide her illicit success.
But because the sudden influx of wealth came in under the guise of Maziv Entertainment,
no one suspected anything.
Codrington, the self-proclaimed CEO of Maziv, is also a self-proclaimed hustler.
His Instagram, which doubles as his business page, makes Codrington's priorities quite
clear.
His bio says his name is Jamesy, aka Coach C. He also refers to himself as an artist
in every aspect and a football coach.
Codrington then claims he's living that jet life, followed by three airplane emojis.
The Instagram page, @maziv_media, has a feed filled with evidence of Codrington's clients,
including gentleman's clubs, bars, and models, some of whom pose in front of the white G-Wagon
allegedly bought with funds from Petrone's tablet smuggling operation.
In a way, Codrington and his business were a front for what was really going on.
Though Codrington, as of April 2022, hasn't been charged with any crimes related to his
wife's scheme.
But he and Maziv Entertainment still served their own unique purpose: keeping the retailer,
their family, their friends, and—most important of all—the police off their scent.
Explained Away Meanwhile, back at Yale, a few people noticed
the high volume of orders coming from Petrone's department.
In June 2020, someone finally asked her why she was ordering so many iPads.
When Yale officials asked her why Petrone explained away the issue.
She said her department needed a significant equipment update.
The Yale officials, preoccupied with bigger pandemic problems, accepted the simple explanation
and moved on.
Their aloofness allowed Petrone to continue her operation for 13 more months before the
anonymous tip came in and brought the entire house down.
Anonymous Tipper The anonymous tipper has never been identified.
They were likely someone from Petrone's department or someone who worked close to her.
They saw the abnormally frequent orders and allegedly saw Petrone stuffing tablets in
the trunk of her car.
Yale's financial auditors sifted through Petrone's order history once the tip came in.
They discovered that Petrone had millions of dollars worth of computer equipment, way
more than her department could ever use in a lifetime.
The Yale auditors handed the information over to local authorities, and when the police
saw Petrone's order history, they knew something suspicious was going on.
In 2021 alone, Petrone ordered an absurd amount of equipment.
Records show that on May 26, 2021, Petrone told an employee to start filing an order
for 100 Microsoft Surface Pros.
Petrone said the tablets were for a new study launching on Memorial Day Weekend.
Like the Yale officials, the employee didn't think much about it and divided a chunk of
the massive order into 12 separate purchase orders for 8 tablets each.
Each order was worth a little over $9,000, just enough to fly under the limit's radar.
The employee filed the rest in 4 other purchase orders for $4,500 each.
When Petrone got the shipment in, she turned around and sold the tablets for $71,000 to
her buyer in Long Island.
In addition to Petrone's order history, investigators also found shady-looking bank statements on
her account.
Petrone applied for a PayPal loan that year and used her smuggling capital as collateral.
Investigators used the information from PayPal to obtain bank statements that displayed four
months' worth of lavish spending.
The statements and order history were enough for authorities to arrest Petrone in September.
Court Pleading Prosecutors charged Petrone with wire fraud,
mail fraud, and money laundering.
All combined, Petrone faces a maximum sentence of 23 years behind bars.
She pleaded guilty to all charges and was released on a million-dollar bail by a judge
in New Haven, Connecticut.
Petrone's plea agreement, the only reason she got out on bail, bled her dry.
She forfeited her $560,000 in cash.
Though, the money had already been seized from Maziv Entertainment's bank accounts,
along with 6 of the many high-end cars she and Codrington owned.
As for Petrone's three homes in Connecticut, she agreed to sell them and hand the proceeds
over to Yale as restitution.
Petrone agreed to sell her Georgia home, listing it for $580,000.
Besides Yale, some of these proceeds and seizures went to the government.
Petrone never reported any of her income to the IRS, which lost out on over $6 million
in tax revenue.
Petrone cooperated while awaiting her sentencing from the New Haven courts.
No one's sure how many years she'll get.
Though one law expert doesn't think Petrone will get the max sentence.
The expert, ironically, is from Yale.
Kate Stith, a leading professor at Yale law school, still thinks Petrone will receive
a relatively long prison sentence due to the massive amount of money she stole.
Stith bases her opinion on years of experience as a federal prosecutor in Manhattan.
Nevertheless, since Petrone doesn't have a prior criminal offense, professor Stith doesn't
think she'll get 23 years.
Aftermath Regardless of Petrone's sentencing, both Yale
and the government will probably never get all their money back.
Since Petrone spent some of her illicit gains on travel, food, and fashion items that immediately
depreciate in value after you buy them, there wasn't much money left to return.
Now, the university can only look back and ask the all-important question: where were
Yale's accountants from 2013 to 2021?
A spokeswoman for Yale responded by announcing an investigation into their accounting department
to "identify and correct gaps in its internal financial controls."
We know how Petrone stole 8 figures from one of the most prestigious universities in America.
Perhaps one day, we'll learn how it took them eight years to notice.
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