Loma Linda University Medical Center Executive Arrested for Embezzling $360,000

By AT News Team, Feb. 2, 2015:   Tammy Veach, the executive director for marketing at the hospital on the campus of Loma Linda University (LLU) in southern California, was arrested by San Bernardino County sheriff’s deputies last week and jailed overnight. The county sheriff’s office reported that detectives searched Veach’s home on January 27 and based on the evidence they found, she was charged with grand theft and embezzlement related to Apple iPad and Apple MacBook computers belonging to the medical center.

LLU is one of the largest educational institutions operated by the Seventh-day Adventist denomination. The hospital is a primary training facility for the School of Medicine and other health sciences graduate programs of the university, as well as a key regional health care facility.

Veach has worked for the hospital since 1992, a spokesman for LLU told The Press-Enterprise newspaper in Riverside, California. “Her employment ended Jan. 20.” She has made presentations about workplace wellness programs and the importance of hospital management maintaining strong relationships with the medical staff, according to Aegis Health Group, Inc.

Veach “was arrested … at her home in an affluent South Redlands neighborhood,” according to Spectrum, the leading journal of Adventist academics in North America. It is unclear if a large number of stolen computers was found in the search or if the evidence she was arrested on was largely a matter of documents. According to The Press-Enterprise, no arraignment had been scheduled as of Thursday (Jan. 27).

In the United States any person who is charged with a crime is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. “It is entirely possible that this is more about a misunderstanding than actual criminal intent,” an attorney who deals with White Collar crime told Adventist Today.