Dec 10 (Reuters) – A former New England Law Boston employee has pleaded guilty to three counts of theft after embezzling more than $80,000, some of which he used to purchase equipment for his folk-rock band.
Sloth Machine cover “Easy” – probably what he thought at the time !
Gareth Flanagan, who was fired as the law school’s IT director in 2022 after admitting to unauthorized purchases, was sentenced on Monday to one year of probation and ordered to pay $10,000 in restitution by Suffolk Superior Court Judge James Budreau.
“Institutions of higher learning of all kinds are under intense financial pressures at this time and the last thing they need is another financial challenge in the form of internal theft,” Suffolk District Attorney Kevin Hayden said in a prepared statement.
Flanagan’s attorney did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Tuesday, nor did a law school spokesperson.
It’s unclear if Flanagan’s band, Sloth Machine, is still active. The quartet billed itself as “alt-acoustic-folk rock” but has not posted any new music to its SoundCloud page since 2022. The tune “Band-Aids and Gin” was among its repertoire. The group has 14 followers on SoundCloud.
According to prosecutors, between 2020 and 2022 Flanagan spent about $68,000 on New England Law Boston’s Amazon account on purchases unrelated to the law school. He also embezzled $4,100 in Apple products and $8,200 in other music products for a total of $80,300, prosecutors said. Some but not all of the items were returned to the law school.
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