Emeryville Man Pleads Guilty to Selling Stolen MacBooks to Folsom Contact

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Jonas Jarut, 41, of Emeryville, pleaded guilty today to conspiracy to transport stolen property interstate, U.S. Attorney McGregor W. Scott announced.

According to court documents, Jarut worked as a database administrator in the Graduate School of Education at a public university in Berkeley. In that position, his duties included purchasing Apple MacBooks for the graduate school. In March 2019, Jarut began stealing MacBooks from the graduate school and selling them for cash to an individual in Folsom who, in turn, resold and shipped them to buyers outside the state of California. In total, Jarut stole and sold that individual at least 90 MacBooks. The cost to the graduate school of those MacBooks was over $200,000.

This case is a product of an investigation by the IRS Criminal Investigation and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Thuesen is prosecuting the case.

Jarut is scheduled for a status conference regarding sentencing on June 14, 2021. He faces a maximum statutory penalty of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. The actual sentence, however, will be determined at the court’s discretion after consideration of any applicable statutory factors and the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, which take into account a number of variables.