$2.3 Million Stolen By Art Institute Of Chicago Payroll Manager: FBI

CHICAGO — The former payroll manager of the Art Institute of Chicago has been charged with embezzling more than $2.3 million over the course of more than a decade.

Museum officials called the loss "significant" but said it did not impact financial decisions.

Michael Maurello, 56, of Beach Park, has been charged with two counts of wire fraud and two counts of bank fraud, and federal prosecutors intend to have him detained without bond, according to court records.

Maurello is accused of making fraudulent transfers into his personal accounts by falsifying payroll system records to make it seem that they were payments to other current and former Art Institute employees.

According to the indictment unsealed Friday, Maurello changed the direct deposit account numbers of employees to his own accounts and entered false reasons for the payments.

Those reasons included negative withholding of taxes, tuition remission or life insurance, or accrued paid time off for employees that either had not accrued any PTO or had already been paid for it, the indictment alleged.

An Art Institute spokesperson said in a statement that the museum discovered "unusual account activity" during a 2019 review of financial control procedures. Museum staff conducted an internal investigation and, after discovering Maurello's scheme, fired him and referred the matter to law enforcement, according to the statement.

In January 2020, when the assistant controller of the Art Institute asked Maurello about one of the payments to a former employee, he "falsely stated that the transaction was only a test of the payroll system," according to the four-count indictment.

Maurello then allegedly edited and altered a payroll system report to attempt to hide information about money he had misappropriated, changing names, dates and dollar amounts.

"This individual stole in excess of $2 million from the organization over the course of approximately a decade. The cumulative loss was significant, but because of the length of time and manner in which it was taken, it did not impact decisions around staffing, payroll, scholarship funding, programming, or other financial aspects of the organization," the spokesperson said.

"We have implemented additional controls and procedures to help detect and prevent any future malfeasance and are recovering funds through insurance," the statement continued.

A federal bank fraud conviction can be punished by up to 30 years, while a conviction for wire fraud carries a statutory maximum of 20 years.

As of Friday, no arraignment date had been set and no attorney had filed an appearance on Maurello's behalf.

Related: Accountant Sentenced After Embezzling Over $65 Million From Art Institute Trustee