A former Tiffany vice-president pleaded guilty on Friday to
charges she stole an assortment of little blue box bling worth more than $2
million from the famous Fifth Avenue jeweler's inventory.
Appearing in federal court in Manhattan, Ingrid
Lederhaas-Okun, 46, admitted she had stashed the jewelry in her home in
upmarket Darien, Connecticut, where she was arrested earlier this month.
'I knew it was illegal to steal, and I did so regardless.
... I'm very sorry,' she told a judge before pleading guilty to one count of
interstate transportation of stolen property.
As vice president of product development, Lederhaas-Okun had
authority to check out jewelry from Tiffany to provide to potential
manufacturers to determine production costs.
Authorities alleged that after she left Tiffany in February,
the company discovered she had checked out 164 items that were never returned.
The items included numerous diamond bracelets in 18-carat gold,
diamond drop and hoop earrings in platinum or 18-carat gold, diamond rings in
platinum, rings with precious stones in 18-carat gold, and platinum and diamond
pendants.
When confronted about the missing jewelry, Lederhaas-Okun
claimed that she had left some of it behind at Tiffany and that some had been
lost or damaged, according to a criminal complaint.
But an investigation found that Lederhaas-Okun resold some
of the goods to an unidentified international dealer for more than $1.3
million. Other items were found in her home.
Bank records showed that since January 2011, the dealer
wrote 75 checks to her or her husband for amounts of up to $47,400, the
complaint said.
Investigators also recovered purchase forms signed by
Lederhaas-Okun that said the items were her personal property.
Authorities alleged Lederhaas-Okun purposely checked out
items valued at under $10,000 apiece to avoid detection.
The company takes a daily inventory of all checked-out items
worth more than $25,000.
Lederhaas-Okun faces a maximum of nearly four years in
prison at sentencing on December 10.
She was seized by FBI agents at her home on July 2. The
46-year-old has been charged with wire fraud and interstate transportation of
stolen property.
She used a series of excuses to cover-up the thousands of
dollars of missing trinkets which was uncovered when a fuller inventory was
taken in February.
According to Lederhaas-Okun's LinkedIn profile, she attended
Georgetown University in D.C.
She was a vice-president at Tiffany until March this year
when she was let go as part of 'downsizing' after 22 years with the company.
She described her role as 'responsible for all aspects of
$150M designer business' at the high-end jewellery brand.
A Tiffany spokesman told MailOnline: 'In deference to the
U.S. Attorney’s investigation, we are not in a position to comment at this
time.'
Her husband Robert Okun is a hedge fund manager and a former
executive director of UBS financial services.
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