Jody Farnham Imprisoned For Embezzlement From Uvm

The Office of the United States Attorney for the District of Vermont announced that Jody Farnham, 55, of Burlington, was sentenced today in United States District Court in Rutland to 13 months of imprisonment following her guilty plea to a charge of federal program embezzlement.  Chief Judge Christina Reiss ordered that Farnham serve a three-year term of supervised release upon completion of her prison term and pay restitution in the amount of $200,000. The court directed that Farnham report to the Bureau of Prisons on July 29 to begin serving her sentence.    

According to the information to which Farnham pled guilty last January, Farnham had been employed for a number of years by the University of Vermont, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.  Farnham was an office support specialist for the Vermont Institute for Artisan Cheese, which provided educational, research and technical consulting services to artisan cheese makers.  VIAC offered courses and workshops in cheesemaking and enrollees paid tuition to UVM to attend the programs.  According to the information, Farnham began embezzling money from UVM in about 2006 and, before the thefts were discovered in late 2012, she stole not less than $200,000.  Farnham embezzled much of the money by altering checks given to her by VIAC enrollees.  She changed the checks, which were made out to VIAC, to make her a co-payee.  She then deposited the forged checks into her personal bank account.  Farnham also stole some cash tuition payments, and misused UVM credit cards to make personal purchases.  During the time period of the embezzlement, UVM received substantial amounts of federal funding.

This case was investigated by the University of Vermont Police Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Farnham is represented by Robert Hemley.  The prosecutor is Assistant U.S. Attorney Gregory Waples.