After being charged with stealing close to $1 million dollars from a jewelry store where she worked, Ariel Foster is no longer enrolled at Lasell University, according to Director of Communications Ian Meropol.
The former first-year track athlete is set to appear in court on May 5 for a pretrial hearing after pleading not guilty to charges of larceny over $1,200, and being released on $1,000 bail at her arraignment in Woburn District Court on March 10.
Head coach of the track-and-field team Ben Biello did not comment, and the Athletic Department redirected questions to Meropol.
Foster was an employee at Lovisa Jewelry at the Burlington Mall, and allegedly used store merchandise to refund money onto her own credit card, according to Burlington PD.
Middlesex Assistant District Attorney Julien Gelly said during the arraignment, “an item was scanned onto the register, and the item price was altered to heighten the loss. The item would then be refunded onto a credit card," belonging to Foster.
A subpoena to Foster’s bank account uncovered records of Foster reportedly using the funds to make purchases from Tesla, Delta Airlines, a hotel in Hawaii, and Louis Vuitton. According to Detective Brittany Zaccagnini of Burlington PD, there was “evidence to show Foster spent approximately $99,000. We also know that there is a significant amount of money in her accounts. These funds are all currently frozen and being held at this time.”
Court documents obtained by CBS Boston said campus police informed Burlington PD that Foster had been “...the subject of multiple investigations for similar... issues in the last year in regards to using fraudulent credit cards to pay for tuition.”
Meropol has publicly stated that the university is “gathering all the facts,” and that as a policy, the university does not release police reports.