Man acquitted of all charges in case involving embezzlement from St. Catherine’s University

A man who was formally charged with six counts of aiding and abetting the theft of more than $400,000 from St. Catherine’s University has been acquitted of all charges.

Court records show 57-year-old Juan Ramon Bruce was found not guilty of all charges on Monday following a jury trial.

As previously reported by 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS, Bruce was one of two people to be charged. Court records show Laura Jean Fero, who was also charged with six felony counts of theft, has a court hearing scheduled for Aug. 13.

A criminal complaint alleges Fero, who was a dean at the school, entered contracts with Bruce and his company. Police said they found emails 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 document.

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.