2 accused of embezzling more than $400K from St. Catherine’s University

Two people are in custody for allegedly stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from St. Catherine’s University in St. Paul over the course of nearly three years, with some funds going to travel expenses.

Ramsey County court documents show Laura Jean Fero, 54, and Juan Ramon Bruce, 56, are each charged with aiding and abetting six felony counts of theft.

According to a criminal complaint, Laura Jean Fero, 54, previously served in the dean position, and also administered a grant used to prepare healthcare professionals, while employed at the university from June 2019 through Aug. 28, 2023.

During an investigation following a complaint by the school in Nov. 2023, St. Paul police say they focused on university contracts Fero entered into with Bruce, as well as his company, JB & Associates LLC. Police also found e-mails between Fero and Bruce that linked them together romantically.

The complaint adds Fero violated the university’s workplace policy about conflicts of interest due to using her position to transfer money to Bruce while she was in a romantic relationship with him.

Bruce’s contracted work included marketing and cost analysis for continuing education development and delivery for the school, outreach, cultivation and geography work, according to the complaint.

From Aug. 2020 through Dec. 2021, the document says Bruce was paid $177,744. Court records also show Bruce entered a second contract with the university on Aug. 31, 2021, and was paid $132,000 between Jan. 2022 to Dec. 2022. Then, a third contract was made on Nov. 4, 2022, where payments from Jan. to July of 2023 to Bruce totaled $68,250.

However, after reviewing Bruce’s financial records, police found his company received six payments totaling $412,644 from St. Catherine’s between Aug. 31, 2020 – Aug. 23, 2023.

School leaders discovered they were missing $400,000 after Fero left, and notified police in November after receiving reports directly from Bruce of the work he did while under contract.

The complaint states Bruce’s reports were vastly different from the ones he sent directly to Fero while she was still an employee. He also sent the school a document explaining the services and reports, but the complaint says the document was written by Fero after she left the school.

Court records show Fero and Bruce took multiple trips together, taking roundtrips out of MSP to places such as Cancun, Miami, Orlando, Phoenix and Atlanta. While going through Fero’s procurement card history, police say they found $18,189 in charges considered not legitimate by St. Catherine’s, such as the airfare for the above trips, rental vehicles, hotels and more costs associated to their trips. There were another $8,002 charges that were considered to be questionable legitimacy.

During an interview with police following her arrest at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport last week, Fero said she didn’t disclose the relationship with the university because she thought the policy only referred to people who were married, according to the document.

Fero’s next hearing is scheduled for June 7. She is being held on a $75,000 bail. Meanwhile, Bruce’s first appearance was held Monday morning.