Financial Crime: California man admits procuring for hundreds of MacBooks stolen from Tesla, Stanford University and U.C. Berkeley
A California man has pleaded responsible to procuring hundreds and hundreds of dollars worth of Apple laptops that had been stolen from foremost faculties including Stanford University and the University of California, Berkeley as well to from Tesla Inc.
Philip James, 35, of Folsom, Calif., admitted he took nearly 1,000 pilfered laptops from workers on the universities and the electrical automobile producer, and resold them to out-of-negate investors, lustrous plump well that they had been stolen.
Federal prosecutors dispute James sold the stolen Apple
AAPL,
MacBooks from just a few of us between October 2015 and June 2020. He paid between $1,600 and $2,250 for every computer, in accordance with court docket paperwork.
James’ attorney declined to command.
Among James’ potentialities used to be Cory Beck, who worked in the IT department for Tesla
TSLA,
in Palo Alto. Beck admitted stealing around 100 computer methods from the firm and selling them to James.
Every other customer used to be Eric Castenada, whose sister, Patricia Castenada, worked for Stanford’s school of humanities and sciences in a feature that allowed her to procure computer equipment. In all, the Castenadas admitted stealing over 800 computer methods, costing the college over $2 million.
At U.C. Berkeley, James bought nearly 100 stolen computer methods from Jonas Jarut, who worked on the college.
Beck, the Castenadas and Jarut previously pleaded responsible to charges in a separate however linked case.
Representatives of Stanford, Berkeley and Tesla didn’t straight away return messages wanting for command.
As fragment of his plea settlement, James has agreed to pay restitution of nearly $2.3 million to Stanford, $256,000 to Tesla and $209,000 to U.C. Berkeley. He faces as a lot as 10 years in penal complex when he is sentenced in July.
