Assistant Professor’s Embezzlement from Washington University Leads to 27 Months in Prison

ST. LOUIS – U.S. District Judge Henry E. Autrey on Thursday sentenced a former assistant professor who embezzled $412,163 from the Washington University School of Medicine to 27 months in prison.

Judge Autrey also ordered Gary Grajales-Reyes, MD-PhD, to repay the money. Federal law enforcement has already seized a substantial quantity of collectible trading cards from Grajales-Reyes’ laboratory that he bought with some of the funds.

As part of his guilty plea in August to three counts of wire fraud, Grajales-Reyes admitted submitting 73 false requisition requests to WashU Medicine for 761 different pieces of computer equipment, falsely claiming that it was for the research laboratory that he directed.  Once he received the equipment at his lab, Grajales-Reyes sold some of the computer equipment through his personal eBay site and some to an Amazon-based third-party seller.  He used the money obtained by selling the computer equipment for his own personal expenses.  

Grajales-Reyes’s greed-fueled crime affected WashU Medicine in multiple ways, Assistant U.S. Attorney Hal Goldsmith said in court Thursday. Grajales-Reyes “defrauded the very institution which has supported him in achieving all that he has,” Goldsmith said, including by providing him “an education, substantial salary and benefits” and a research lab. In addition to the loss of funds that were intended to support important patient care and research, the University had to terminate a National Institutes of Health grant for which Grajales-Reyes was a principal investigator, causing the loss of $87,545 in grant funding. Staff spent more than 500 hours investigating and dealing with Grajales-Reyes’ crime, which damaged the reputation of the department and its programs and prompted concerns from academic and business leaders and philanthropic supporters.

The FBI investigated the case, with the cooperation and assistance of Washington University. Assistant U.S. Attorney Hal Goldsmith prosecuted the case.