University of California San Francisco - In The News

University Business, March, 2003 by Jean Marie Angelo

Here's another item for the "crime on campus" file. As head cashier for the University of California San Francisco, Marie Taliaferro, 57, a 17-year employee, pulled off a feat extraordinaire: She managed to embezzle $4.5 million in cash from the school. "I've seen funds electronically transferred or checks forged.

But the sheer bulk of cash that she walked off with would have been a stack of bills close to a foot-tall every day," John Carbone Jr., assistant district attorney, told the press. Taliaferro was fired from her $55,800-a-year job in August 1999 after officials suspected her of stealing. The cashier used some of the money to fund a spiritual magazine published by Solimar Inc., a company founded by her daughter Christina, and to open an angel-themed art gallery in Lafayette. She'll be sentenced in May ...