Thursday, December 02, 2010

Memorial Sloan Kettering Bilked Out of $3.8 Million in Printer Scam

This is just unbelievable and sucks in a big way. Memorial Sloan Kettering Hospital in Manhattan, which is one of the premier cancer research facilities in the world, was ripped off to the tune of $3.8 million by a clerk who ordered on the hospital's dime and then resold printer cartridges for personal gain.
A former worker at Memorial Sloan-Kettering stole nearly $4 million from the cancer center in a massive scheme that involved ordering a boatload of unnecessary printer cartridges and reselling them, authorities said.

The loot from the elaborate scam was used to fund a lavish lifestyle that allowed $37,000-a-year receiving clerk Marque Gumbs to move from a Bronx housing project to a luxurious Trump high-rise in the suburbs.

Gumbs, 32 -- who was arraigned yesterday in Manhattan Criminal Court on charges of grand larceny and criminal possession of stolen property -- allegedly began his scheme in 2004 by ordering extra toner cartridges and reselling them.

In one astounding stretch from October 2009 through August 2010, Gumbs ordered $1.2 million worth of toner that wasn't usable for any machine at the hospital, authorities said.

His alleged ruse cost the hospital $3.8 million.

Gumbs, who first started working for Sloan in 1999, instructed delivery drivers to call him when they were close to the East 53rd Street site where he worked so he could personally receive the packages, officials said.

Sources said Gumbs was caught on surveillance video taking the parcels -- which never went through the mailroom -- to a garbage area.
That's $3.8 million that could have gone for patient care, infrastructure maintenance/upgrades, and research.

I donate there regularly, and am shocked that the hospital didn't have sufficient controls over its expenditures to notice the discrepancies. How could no one have noticed that printer/toner cartridges were being ordered that were not usable by any of the hospital printers? It would appear that the accounting, billing, and facilities budgets aren't nearly as scrutinized as they should be.

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