Printing Money at Work

Hospital Worker Accused of Stealing Up to $3.8 Million in Toner to Live Large

It was almost like printing money.

An office worker at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center is accused of stealing as much as $3.8 million from the hospital by ordering toner-ink cartridges in bulk, diverting their delivery and then selling them elsewhere, authorities said Wednesday.

The scam is alleged to have afforded the worker—who earned $37,000 a year at the hospital—a luxury lifestyle, complete with an apartment at a Trump high-rise, a BMW vehicle and a checking account padded with tens of thousands of dollars, authorities said. It went on for six years, they said.

Marque Gumbs, 32 years old, who also went by the first name Marquis, was arraigned Wednesday in Manhattan Criminal Court on a charge of grand larceny in excess of $1 million and was ordered held on $100,000 bail.

According to a criminal complaint, Mr. Gumbs was employed by Memorial Sloan-Kettering at its main outpatient campus on East 53rd Street as a receiving clerk who was responsible for ordering, receiving and stocking ink cartridges for the printers at the facility. In that role, he had password-protected access to the computer used to order the material from an Office Depot, the complaint stated.

From October 2009 through August 2010 alone, Mr. Gumbs ordered about $1.2 million worth of toner that wasn't compatible with any machine at the hospital and far exceeded the toner usage, according to the complaint.

A law-enforcement source with knowledge of the case said that since 2004, the orders for toner placed by Mr. Gumbs totaled about $3.8 million in value.

Once the toner cartridges were ordered, Mr. Gumbs allegedly instructed drivers from Office Depot to call him and he would meet them in the street to accept the delivery, which never made it to the normal receiving area, the complaint stated. Surveillance video obtained by investigators with the New York Police Department showed Mr. Gumbs intercepting the packages and taking the boxes to a garbage-bay area, the law-enforcement official said.

He said investigators are still probing how and to whom Mr. Gumbs is alleged to have "fenced" the stolen toner to. What is clear, the official said, is that the suspect's tastes and lifestyle didn't match his income.

Between April 2008 and September 2010, Mr. Gumbs allegedly made cash deposits into his personal Bank of America checking account totaling $149,048, in addition to his $1,065 biweekly paycheck, the complaint stated.

The official said Mr. Gumbs also made cash payments to buy property in the Bronx and Westchester, where he owned a one-bedroom apartment in the Trump Plaza in New Rochelle, a luxury high-rise staffed by a doorman. In May, he bought a 2011 BMW X6, dropping $50,500 in cash as a down payment, according to the complaint.

Bank records also showed Mr. Gumbs spent significant money on airfare and hotels and shopping sprees at retailers such as Gucci and Louis Vuitton, the official said.

A neighbor at Trump Plaza, who declined to give his name, described Mr. Gumbs as "low key." "He kept a fairly low profile, but the way he dressed was a little flashy," the neighbor said. "You could tell he wore fancy clothes but he himself was low key as a person."

Kathy Lewis, a spokeswoman for Memorial Sloan-Kettering, said Mr. Gumbs was an employee since 1999 but has been "terminated." She referred further questions to authorities handling the case. A lawyer representing Mr. Gumbs did not respond to a request for comment.