Disney employee racks up $24K on corporate card to fund drug-fueled lifestyle, is somehow not fired
A Disneyland employee who spent $24,000 on his corporate credit card to fund a lifestyle fueled by illegal drugs said the Mouse House gave him a second chance after he came clean about his irresponsible splurging.
Taron Sargsyan, who has since left the company, penned an essay for Business Insider detailing his personal struggles when he started an internship with Disney in the summer of 2014.
After graduating from college, Disney hired him as a software engineer on the Photopass team, which was a “haven” during a dark time, Sargsyan said.
Sargsyan said he was depressed and isolated after coming out as gay to his Armenian immigrant family, and that he turned to methamphetamines as a refuge.
“As my addiction deepened, my finances didn’t reflect the near-six-figure salary I earned at Disney,” Sargsyan wrote. “Most of my money was spent on drugs and on helping out my immigrant family.”
The engineer reached a breaking point when he realized he had racked up a $24,000 bill on his corporate card.
“I convinced myself I’d pay it back, but I was getting in over my head,” Sargsysan wrote.
for drugs.
In a Monday interview with The Post, Sargsyan said he hadn’t used the Disney credit card to buy drugs directly.
“Basically, I used this credit card for personal expenses, groceries, dentist, etc.,” Sargsyan told The Post. “This card supported my drug habit because it allowed me to use my personal income on most of my drug expenses.”
Sargsyan added, however, that he “did spend some of the payday loans that I paid using this credit card on drugs. I also sent a Square cash payment to two people who I obtained drugs from.”
A desperate Sargsyan took a stranger’s advice in early 2017 and admitted the “mistake” to his manager.
“I was terrified I’d get fired or go to jail, but Disney offered me the greatest gesture of love anyone could’ve shown me,” he wrote in his op-ed.
“The company gave me a chance to pay it back and left me with a formal warning. This was a big turning point in my life.”
In his interview with The Post, however, Sargsyan revealed that he never specifically owned up to his manager at Disney that he had a drug problem.
“I just told him I had messed up and used the credit card for personal expenses,” Sargsyan said.
“I should also mention that I was not out to my coworkers,” he added in an email to The Post. “They didn’t know I was gay (as far as I knew). They genuinely wanted to give me another chance.”
Sargsyan’s family gave him a loan to pay all of it back, and he said he worked to pay the company back that year.
The engineer said that Disney’s kind gesture also inspired him to go to rehab, but he “failed six times” and was starting to “give up hope.”
A year later, on July 17, 2018, Sargsyan hit rock bottom when he found himself “with no gas, no money, and 10 days left to return to work from another medical leave of absence.”
He said he pushed his friends and family away, and feared losing his job at the Mouse House, but he decided to Google “rehab for professionals,” and called for help.
Soon, Sargsyan was in Tustin, Calif. at a new rehab facility, which “changed his life.”
The engineer connected with the people at the rehab center who reminded him of people from his childhood and his innocence.
The experience reminded him of his own humanity and the humanity of his employer, he said, explaining that his relationship with his family improved as a result.
“Disney showed me that compassion can be a powerful force to inspire forgiveness and accountability. I learned that without self-forgiveness and accountability, healing from addiction is impossible,” he added.
Although Sargsyan no longer works for Disney, he said he is “grateful” for the company for “unlocking the power” of his “imagination” and for giving him a “second chance at life.”
On Monday, Sargsyan told The Post he quit his Disney job in August 2019 “because I was no longer fulfilled by it.”
“I also didn’t want to say the only reason I was sober was because of my job. I found internal motivation for my sobriety,” Sargsyan added.
“I found a new purpose for my life. I wanted to pursue my dream of sharing my experience and story with the world—and how Disney had such a profound impact on my life. I didn’t want to waste any more of Disney’s resources on me because they had already done so much for me by giving me another chance at life.”
Disney did not immediately comment.
