Former University of Maryland, Baltimore Employee Pleads Guilty to Stealing More Than $469,000 from the University

BALTIMORE, MD (February 27, 2009) - Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler announced today that Cheryl Denise Green of Owings Mills, pled guilty before the Honorable David W. Young in Baltimore City Circuit Court to felony theft of $469,851 from the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB). Green, a law school graduate, elected to proceed without counsel. Sentencing is scheduled for April 16, 2009.

While employed from December 2005 through January 2008 as a Division Manager, Green was entrusted with a UMB Visa card for the express purposes of making payments to vendors, for grant allocations, and for UMB office supply purchases. On October 30, 2007, Green was informed that her position would be eliminated due to department reorganization, and her last day was to be January 30, 2008. On January 27, 2008, Green deposited into her personal bank account a check in the amount of $137,736.33, made payable to UMB. The next day, the University was notified by Provident Bank’s Security Division that Green had deposited the check into her personal bank account. Provident cancelled the transaction and forwarded the stolen check and bank surveillance photographs to UMB police.

After an extensive internal audit by UMB, it was discovered that Green also used the UMB credit card to make unauthorized personal purchases and payments totaling $332,115. The State determined that during the defendant’s employment with UMB, she processed a total of 620 credit card transactions. More than 200 of those transactions were definitely fraudulent and unrelated to any reasonable business expense of UMB.

The case was investigated by the AG’s Criminal Division, the University System of Maryland Internal Audit Office, and the Maryland State Police. In making today’s announcement, Attorney General Gansler thanked Assistant Attorney General Kate O’Donnell for her work on the case.