Siblings sentenced to prison after stealing, selling $4 million worth of MacBooks from Stanford

A former Stanford University employee and her brother were sentenced to federal prison last week after the two were involved in a scheme of stealing laptops given to the university and selling them for their own profit.

Patricia Castaneda, 38, from Redwood City, California, was an employee at Stanford's School of Humanities and Sciences, and part of her duties including ordering Apple MacBooks for faculty and staff use. Beginning in 2009 or 2010, Castaneda began stealing the MacBooks she ordered and sold them for cash, according to an April 18 statement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of California. 

At first, Castaneda sold the MacBooks to someone she met on Craigslist, but around February 2016, authorities said she brought her brother, 37-year-old Eric Castaneda, into the scheme.

Eric Castaneda then would give the MacBooks to 35-year-old Philip James of Folsom, California, who would then resell and ship the laptops to buyers outside of the state, authorities said. 

It was not stated how the scheme was foiled, but prosecutors said in total, Patricia Castaneda stole over $4 million worth of laptops from the university. That includes the 800 laptops stolen to give to James, which equaled around $2.3 million.

Both siblings pleaded guilty to charges, with Patricia Castaneda sentenced to 33 months in federal prison, and Eric Castaneda sentenced to 18 months in federal prison. Patricia Castaneda was also ordered to pay $4.07 million in restitutions, and Eric Castaneda was ordered to pay $2.83 million in restitutions.

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The scheme involving the siblings was part of another James had organized. From October 2015 through June 2020, James bought close to 1,000 stolen MacBooks from multiple individuals, including the Castanedas, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of California. 

In addition to selling the laptops taken from Stanford, James also sold and shipped around 90 stolen laptops taken from the University of California, Berkeley, beginning in March 2019, as well as around 100 laptops from an electric vehicle and clean energy company in Palo Alto beginning in October 2015, authorities said. 

James pleaded guilty to the charges and will be sentenced on July 25. He is also ordered to pay $2.28 million to Stanford , $209,057 to UC Berkeley and $256,485 to the electric vehicle and clean energy company in restitutions. 

USA TODAY has reached out Stanford for comment. 

Follow Jordan Mendoza on Twitter: @jordan_mendoza5.