Mark Brixey, 48, a former Missouri State University (MSU) employee pleaded guilty on Tuesday to charges of embezzling more than a million dollars over a period of 10 years from the university.
He has been released on bond but faces a 43-year prison sentence.
Brixey, who resigned last year, is charged with wire fraud, money laundering and filing a false tax report after stealing over a million dollars.
Last August, the university officials estimated that he stole around $400,000.
"He repeatedly abused his position and exploited the weaknesses of the university's accounting system," Tammy Dickinson, the US Attorney for the Western District of Missouri, said
The university started noticing missing money from its accounts in 2003 when $29,000 was stolen. And the missing amount grew every year and it reached its highest value in 2010 when the university lost around $194,000.
Brixey stole the money from checks that were written by textbook companies that participate in the university's book buy-back program. He said he required the money to give to students who were selling their textbooks.
As a result, one of the book companies started paying Brixey in cash, in 2011.
President Clif Smart said that this incident has shaken the management completely and has shown how important it is to supervise every dollar that enters the campus
The university has already started implementing safety measures, to the bookstore specifically; segregating duties of the people in the bookstore, implementing new policies to eliminate exceptions and also policies regarding transactions to better manage the financial services.
MSU officials are hopeful that they will recover all their lost money as they have a million dollar insurance policy to protect them against employee theft and law enforcement has already recovered $144,000 from Brixey.
