A supervisor’s tip about an “unusual purchase” led to the arrest of a former ILR administrator accused of purchasing 100 cameras using Cornell’s money, according to a statement to be released Friday by Cornell Police Chief Kathy Zoner.
The supervisor alerted Cornell in January that Colleen Clauson, who was responsible for buying equipment for faculty, had purchased $15,000 worth of Canon cameras that were not listed in the ILR School’s inventory, according to the statement obtained by The Sun.
A joint investigation by the Audit Office and Cornell Police found that the purchase was just the tip of the iceberg, according to Zoner, and led to an indictment in Tompkins County Court alleging that Clauson made 38 fraudulent purchases of 100 cameras and eight lenses totaling $367,360 between July 2011 and August 2015.
After purchasing the cameras and lenses with Cornell’s money and having them shipped to the ILR School mailroom, Clauson sold them over the internet “at a highly reduced cost,” primarily to a buyer in California, according to the indictment.
Clauson, who now resides in Reno, Nevada, was indicted and arraigned in September and charged with grand larceny in the second degree, a class C felony with a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison. She paid $10,000 cash bail and was released.
The ex-administrator “was not able to provide an explanation for the financial irregularities” when she was interviewed by a Cornell Police investigator in January at Barton Hall, immediately adjacent to her former office building in Ives Hall, according to court documents.
Zoner said Cornell fired Clauson after the Audit Office found that she had misappropriated University assets, in violation of Policy 3.6, which requires that employees report financial irregularities. A now-deleted Cornell website listed Clauson’s position as desktop support manager.
Attorney Joseph Joch, who is representing Clauson, claimed that the audit was handled “improperly” by other employees and implied that multiple employees are making fraudulent purchases.
“[Cornell is] afraid to reveal the extent of it,” he told The Sun. “They’re afraid to open up a Pandora’s box that might show that there are a number of employees contributing to the losses.”
Cornell denied The Sun’s request under New York’s Freedom of Information Law for a copy of the internal audit, claiming the release of the audit could, among other things, deprive Clauson of her right to a fair trial.
Pretrial motions are due Friday, according to Zoner’s statement, and the trial is set to begin in front of Judge John C. Rowley on Jan. 30.