https://hotair.com/jazz-shaw/2...ent-benefits-n608196

A woman named Janet Yamanaka Mello worked as a civilian financial program manager for the U.S. Army in Texas for several years. Now she’s heading into retirement with full federal benefits. This would be an unremarkable story were it not for the side hustle that Mello had been allegedly running. She had been using her position to defraud the Army of a lot of money by siphoning it off to her own personal accounts

It’s alleged that she defrauded the Army of $100 million dollars, spending the cash on dozens of expensive real estate purchases and a fleet of luxury cars. She’s already admitted to much of it and her attorney claims she will be returning some of the money. So how is she able to draw retirement benefits? Her attorney claims “she earned it.” And the Army claims that they can’t do anything to stop it. (NY Post)

Janet Yamanaka Mello, 57, who is currently under criminal investigation, brazenly claims she “earned” her civil servant retirement package despite allegedly using the funds to purchase over 30 homes, luxury cars, and jewelry through the seven-year-long scheme.

The military admitted that there is nothing that can be done to withhold Mello’s benefits from her as it’s protected under a federal law that was held up in government bureaucracy.

More than 30 luxurious homes and at least 80 expensive vehicles, including some class, collector’s edition cars. Authorities also seized more than $18 million in cash from her private accounts that she hadn’t gotten around to spending yet. And she did all of this in barely six years.

those benefits fall under 5 U.S. Code Section 8312. That law states that Mello’s benefits are basically untouchable unless she is convicted of “treason, rebellion or insurrection, or other similar offenses.” Of course, she may have to enjoy those benefits behind bars. She’s been charged with five counts of mail fraud, four counts of engaging in a monetary transaction over $10,000 using criminally derived proceeds, and one count of aggravated identity theft. She was released without bail in Texas and is awaiting trial. If convicted on all counts, she could be sentenced to up to 142 years in prison.

She was living the lifestyle of the rich and famous while supposedly receiving a public servant’s pay. Yet she only began the endeavor in 2016 and it still took until last year for the law to catch up with her.

Where was the auditor? Why did no one notice?

With fraud of that scale, a lot of others need to be going to prison with her for having not discovered and prevented it. And their pensions should be paid in full .... to the Bureau of Prisons to offset the cost of their incarceration.

Well.... Sounds like treason to me.

https://www.expressnews.com/ne...million-18555061.php

The longtime Army civilian employee bought jewelry, designer purses, dozens of high-end vehicles and vintage motorcycles, and properties in Texas and five other states, according to investigators. She'd moved in to a $1.2 million house in one of San Antonio's most desirable neighborhoods.

Federal prosecutors allege she went on a shopping spree from December 2016 to August of this year with more than $100 million she stole from her employer, taking the money from an Army account that pays for a 4-H program for military families. Though not an administrator of the fund, Mello subverted the process to approve payouts from the fund to vendors, including a vendor she owned, the feds allege.

She set up a company called Child Health and Youth Lifelong Development, or CHYLD, seven years ago and registered it as a vendor for the program, according to the indictment. But the company never provided services for the 4-H program, which encourages children to work on projects in agriculture, health, science and civic leadership. The millions Mello's company scooped up paid for her expensive lifestyle, investigators allege.

Why did it take nearly seven years for anyone in the federal government to catch on?

Many of the large purchases were in her name, but leaders at Joint Base San Antonio-Fort Sam Houston, where she worked, apparently never questioned her about them. And it appears the military didn't conduct an audit of the 4-H program in the time Mello, 57, allegedly carried out her scheme.

"No Army audit caught this, I can tell you that," Assistant U.S. Attorney Justin Simmons said.

The Army's Installation Management Command at JBSA-Fort Sam Houston did not respond to the San Antonio Express-News' repeated requests for comment, and an investigator with its inspector general's office hung up on a reporter.

Despite the staggering amount of money involved, there were apparently only a handful of checks in place. One of them was the requirement that a supervisor of Mello authorize disbursements from the 4-H fund. But investigators allege that she got around that one by forging the supervisor's digital signature to approve some of the payments to her shell company.

The 10 federal charges filed against Mello are one count of aggravated identity theft, five counts of mail fraud and four counts of engaging in a monetary transaction over $10,000 using ill-gotten proceeds.

" I think not only this program, but government programs across the board, are susceptible to fraud ," said former federal prosecutor Robert Almonte Jr., who is now in private practice. "They’re not equipped to monitor these things."

Almonte, who prosecuted cases for the U.S. Attorney's Office in San Antonio, said the fraud Mello is accused of committing appeared to be fairly simple.

"I think sometimes you think the monetary amount — $100 million or many millions — and you assume it was some sort of complex scheme," Almonte said. "But you can boil it down to an employee embezzling from their employer. It’s nothing super complex or discreet on her part.

"In some fraud instances, they at least take steps to make sure to hide their fraud," he added. "There was no apparent attempt to hide what she was doing with the money after the fact."

Like Almonte, Mike Lemoine, who retired from the IRS' criminal investigation division, one of the agencies investigating Mello, noted the alleged theft was "definitely brazen."

Lemoine investigated cases like Mello's, though none of them involved such a staggering amount of money stolen so quickly. He said government officials sometimes rely on the honor system because they don't have the controls in place to prevent fraud.

That's often because of inadequate funding or, in the military's case, staff turnover, said two agents who currently investigate military fraud crimes. They asked not to be identified because they are not authorized to speak with the media.

"They're relying on the good faith standard that the government sometimes employs to conduct business, with the understanding that their employee is not going to rip them off," Lemoine said.

But something as simple as an employee setting up a limited liability company, such as CHYLD, should raise a red flag. Investigators can view LLCs, which protect owners from personal responsibility for the company's debts and other liabilities, as a "a type of concealment" for fraud, Lemoine said.

"We used to call it, 'Hiding in the open,'" he added.

Funny.... back in the late 1980's I knew a guy named Joel Mello who owned a paintball store. Claimed to have been a Marine in an air wing. Eventually he ran up a lot of unpaid bills on the store's account. He tried to sell the store to a few people but none were interested without seeing financial records, which he wouldn't provide. One day, he just disappeared.

Sounds like easy pickings for Sen Kennedy

This story seems unbelievable to me, how in the world did one hundred million dollars get spent before being noticed?

Is this woman Ukranian?
The size of the balls on this women.

Only one of the thousands of others.

30 years ago my job was with a state government agency as a fraud and forgery investigator. Nearly all cases were settled with transfers or promotions; prosecutions were rare because public disclosures created embarrassing exposures for the politicians and career bureaucrats in charge.

On a related note...

This was stolen, in the amounts noted, from

quote:

an Army account that pays for a 4-H program for military families.

Nothing wrong with either 4-H or the military, but, what the hell? How much money goes into that 'worthwhile' endeavor in total, that this sized amount could be stolen without notice?

I mean, we're short of artillery rounds, right?

Relax everyone, we can just print more money to replace it…

Army employee Janet Mello pleads guilty to stealing more than $100M from Army to purchase luxury items

https://www.foxbusiness.com/ec...urchase-luxury-items

Janet Yamanaka Mello, 57, was accused of defrauding the government out of $108 million while working as a civilian financial program manager at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas. She pleaded guilty to all five counts of mail fraud and five counts of filing a false tax return after she was indicted in December, according to the San Antonio Express-News.

Mello was accused of engaging in a fraud scheme in which she allegedly had regularly submitted fraudulent paperwork requesting funding from the Army for her Child Health and Youth Lifelong Development, or CHYLD, organization.

The indictment claims Mello's CHYLD "did not provide any services" and that she instead used the funds to purchase millions of dollars in jewelry, clothing, vehicles and real estate.

Mello began the scheme for the military's 4-H program in 2016 and was accused of submitting fraudulent paperwork and receiving checks at UPS mailboxes she rented. Court documents show Mello used the funds to purchase expensive meals, designer clothing, 31 real estate properties and about 80 vintage high-performance cars and motorcycles.

"Despite the massive amount of money that went to CHYLD, defendant's supervisors trusted defendant and did no independent verification that CHYLD actually provided services consistent with the purpose of the program, did no review of defendant's relationship to CHYLD, and took no additional steps to confirm the funds defendant authorized and requested were lawfully used consistent with the purpose of the program," Assistant U.S. Attorney Justin Simmons wrote in a court document, according to the San Antonio Express-News.

U.S. Code Section 8312 needs to be reviewed and scrapped. Compliments of the Gucci goddess..

She'll keep her pension, but with a potential $100M restitution bill, Uncle will offset her annuity payment every month until the restitution judgement is covered. After forfeiting all "derived from" assets and substitute assets, it'll leave her with public-assistance level monthly income. What's left might, or might not, cover her health insurance premiums.

Fun fact, restitution in Federal criminal cases isn't dischargeable in bankruptcy.

Did I miss her sentence? I can't handle the pop up ads on Fox anymore. If she pleaded guilty, I'm assuming she won't get the max. But how many years is she getting in Club Fed?

quote:

Originally posted by Rick Lee:
Did I miss her sentence? If she pleaded guilty, I'm assuming she won't get the max.

She hasn't been sentenced yet, and has not even formally pled guilty yet.

She has signed a plea agreement document, which basically indicates that she intends to plead guilty. It'll now be set for a formal change of plea hearing in federal court. Sentencing will follow at a subsequent hearing, with a presentence investigation occurring in the interim to determine an appropriate sentencing framework for her.

So a final sentence likely won't be entered for several more months.