Folsom man convicted in MacBooks theft ring involving Tesla, Stanford and UC Berkeley
A Sacramento County man this week pleaded guilty to buying nearly 1,000 Apple MacBooks stolen by employees at Tesla Inc., Stanford University and the University of California, Berkeley.
Philip James, 35, of Folsom on Monday pleaded guilty to transporting stolen property interstate, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Sacramento announced in a news release. Four other people have been convicted for their roles in the fencing scheme.
As part of his plea deal, James agreed to pay about $2.74 million in restitution to Tesla and the two Northern California universities.
From October 2015 through June 2020, James bought at least 990 stolen Apple MacBooks from Cory Beck, Eric Castaneda and Jonas Jarut, federal prosecutors said. James would then resell the stolen MacBooks and ship them from Folsom to buyers located outside California.
Beck of Sunnyvale worked in the information technology department at “an electric vehicle and clean energy company based in Palo Alto,” according to the news release. Palo Alto Online reported that Beck was listed as an IT operations manager at Tesla in Palo Alto.
Prosecutors said Beck had access to the company’s inventory of Apple MacBooks and sold at least 100 of them to James from October 2015 through March 2018. Beck made over $220,000 from selling the stolen laptops and failed to report the illicit profits to the IRS in his tax returns, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. In October 2020, Beck pleaded guilty to three counts of filing false tax returns.
Castaneda’s sister, Patricia Castaneda, worked in the School of Humanities and Sciences at “a private university in Stanford, California,” according to the news release. The Stanford Review reported that Patricia Castaneda managed the technology budget for the School of Humanities and Sciences at Stanford University.
Prosecutors said Patricia Castaneda’s duties included ordering Apple MacBooks for university faculty and staff, and she stole at least 800 of the computers and gave them to her brother to sell to James.
Before the sales to James, Patricia Castaneda stole MacBooks she was ordering for the university and sold them to someone she met on Craigslist, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. She stole a total of more than $4 million worth of MacBooks from the university, prosecutors said.
Last year, Patricia Castaneda of San Carlos pleaded guilty to federal program theft, and Eric Castaneda of Redwood City pleaded guilty to conspiracy to transport stolen property interstate, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Jarut of Emeryville worked as an UC Berkeley database administrator, according to the FBI Sacramento Office. Prosecutors said Jarut’s job duties included purchasing Apple MacBooks for the graduate school, and he began stealing MacBooks in March 2019 from the graduate school and selling them to James. In December 2020, Jarut pleaded guilty to conspiracy to transport stolen property interstate.
Chief U.S. District Judge Kimberly Mueller is scheduled to sentence James on July 25. James faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
This story was originally published April 12, 2022 at 7:06 PM.
