Former ASU employee indicted on theft, fraud charges for embezzling nearly $125,000
A grand jury indicted a former Arizona State University employee on 14 felonies after the Arizona Auditor General found evidence he embezzled nearly $125,000.
The report alleged Carlos Urrea, a former manager of information technology at ASU, used his university-issued credit card to make personal purchases between April 2017 and December 2021, including two Christmas trees, 12 gaming consoles, 10 smartwatches and 11 Costco gift cards worth $1,000 apiece.
Urrea provided technology support to executive administration at ASU, including university President Michael Crow’s office. According to the Auditor General, he forged receipts and lied on expense reports to conceal the scheme. The report said he admitted to making the personal purchases and claimed he was trying to support his family.
ASU suspended Urea in January 2022 after an audit by the university found evidence he doctored receipts, and the university fired him in March of that year.
Multiple felony charges
The Maricopa County Attorney’s Office brought the case before a grand jury, which indicted Urrea this month on multiple felony charges, including fraud, forgery, theft and improperly using public money.
But the Auditor General wrote that a failure by university officials to follow ASU’s purchasing policies and procedures allowed the alleged fraud to continue for years.
“Although ASU had appropriate P-card policies and procedures, Executive Administration officials allowed Mr. Urrea to bypass them either because those procedures reportedly took too long for Mr. Urrea to do his job of providing immediate IT-related equipment to senior leadership or because enforcement of policies would have negatively affected Mr. Urrea’s support of senior leadership,” according to the report.
The Auditor General found the university allowed Urrea to use his university credit card to make purchases that should have gone through the procurement process; allowed him to include “vague business purposes” descriptions with purchases; and let him make purchases without receiving prior approval.
ASU spokeswoman Veronica Sanchez said the university is cooperating with the investigation and has “have already taken corrective steps in our policies and procedures.”
The Auditor General’s report noted that the university has made several changes, including directing executive administration staff to use the procurement process for IT purchases when possible and requiring “strict adherence to timely review and approval verifications” of purchases.
