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University Employee and Her Brother Both Sentenced After Stealing Over $4 Million in Laptops

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A Stanford University employee and her brother have been sentenced after stealing laptops from the school and then selling them.

According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Patricia Castaneda, 38, started stealing MacBooks she was ordering as part of her job. She found a buyer on Craigslist in 2009 and continued to sell them to that person for years. In February 2016 she brought her brother Eric Castaneda, 37, into her scheme as well.

Eric would give the MacBooks to 35-year-old Philip James who would then resell and ship the laptops to buyers outside of the state.

It’s not stated how the scheme unraveled, but prosecutors said in total, Patricia stole over $4 million worth of laptops from the university. That includes the 800 laptops she stole and gave to her brother, which equaled around $2.3 million.

Both siblings pleaded guilty to their charges. Patricia was sentenced to 33 months in federal prison and ordered to pay $4.07 million in restitutions. Her brother Eric was sentenced to 18 months in federal prison and ordered to pay $2.83 million in restitutions.

According to the U.S. Attorney’s office, the scheme involving the siblings was part of another that Philip James organized. From October 2015 through June 2020, James purchased nearly 1,000 stolen MacBooks from multiple individuals, including the Castanedas.

In addition to the laptops from Stanford, James also sold around 90 stolen laptops taken from the University of California, Berkeley. He also sold over 100 laptops taken from an electric vehicle and clean energy company in Palo Alto.

James pleaded guilty to the charges and will be sentenced on July 25. He is also ordered to pay $2.28 million to Stanford , $209,057 to UC Berkeley and $256,485 to the electric vehicle and clean energy company in restitutions.



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