U.S. District Judge Henry E. Autrey has sentenced the former IT director of a St. Louis-area university to 46 months in prison and ordered him to repay $3.9 million to his employer and an IT equipment supplier he had defrauded.
Ronald Simpson, of St. Peters, Missouri, was responsible for repairing and replacing defective IT equipment used at the university’s multiple locations. Beginning about November 29, 2018, Simpson sold hundreds of items of IT equipment to a third party.
The items had been approved for purchase after Simpson falsely claimed they would be used or installed at university locations.
He also fraudulently obtained items from the university’s IT supplier by falsely claiming that the equipment they originally supplied was defective. Simpson sold both the original equipment and the replacement gear.
Judge Autrey ordered Simpson to pay $3.19 million to the university and $780,233 to the IT supplier.
In a victim impact letter, a university official said Simpson’s crime “struck a serious blow to our financial stability,” forcing the university “to redirect money away from essential programs and resources that directly benefit our students.”
Simpson also harmed the university’s reputation, betrayed the trust of coworkers and damaged their morale.
The IT supplier said in their own letter that Simpson took advantage of the company’s practice of providing replacement products on an expedited basis to customers to repair critical IT infrastructure before the defective product is returned.
“In addition to bringing perpetrators to justice, the FBI has a dedicated process to try to make victims whole by seizing assets gained from a fraud or theft,” said Special Agent in Charge Ashley Johnson of the FBI St. Louis Division.
Johnson added, “In this case, there were no substantial assets to seize because Ronald Simpson frivolously blew away millions of dollars on himself without any regard to how his crimes would damage the university, its employees and its students.”
Simpson, 54, pleaded guilty in June U.S. District Court in St. Louis to one felony count of wire fraud.
The FBI investigated the case. During this investigation, Simpson’s former employer and IT supplier worked extensively with law enforcement. Assistant U.S. Attorney Derek Wiseman prosecuted the case.
