Former Tiffany & Co. Vice President of Product Development, Ingrid Lederhaas-Okun, pled guilty in New York federal court Friday to stealing over USD$2.1 million worth of jewelry from the high-end jeweler. She was arrested July 2nd at her home in Connecticut and now faces up to 46 months in jail.
Manhattan U.S. attorney Preet Bharara stated that Lederhaas-Okun “looted her employer’s jewelry inventory and then resold millions of dollars’ worth of the merchandise in order to enrich herself. Today, she stands convicted for her thievery and faces the prospect of prison.”
Lederhaas-Okun stole diamond bracelets, diamond drop and hoop earrings, platinum diamond rings, and diamond pendants which she then sold to a leading international buyer and reseller of jewelry with an office in midtown Manhattan.
Following an internal inventory review, Tiffany & Co. realized the executive had checked out and then never returned the various pieces. In a weak maneuver to cover her crime, the former VP claimed that she had only recently checked out the jewels in anticipation of “creating a PowerPoint presentation for her supervisor.”
Unsurprisingly, that PowerPoint presentation was never found.
Stunned former colleagues remembered Lederhaas-Okun as “nice”, “preppy”, and “pleasant”. We can only assume that when delivering the prison sentence on December 10th, New York Federal Judge Paul Gardephe will use a few other adjectives to describe Lederhaas-Okun’s character.
