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Eugene

(62,616 posts)
Tue Jul 23, 2024, 07:40 PM Jul 2024

US Army worker who stole nearly $109 million to buy mansions and luxury cars is sentenced

Source: Associated Press

US Army worker who stole nearly $109 million to buy mansions and luxury cars is sentenced

BY KEN MILLER
Updated 6:49 PM EDT, July 23, 2024

A Texas woman who pleaded guilty to charges of stealing nearly $109 million from a youth development program for children of military families and using it to fund an extravagant lifestyle that included multiple mansions, a fleet of luxury cars and designer accessories was sentenced Tuesday to 15 years in federal prison.

Janet Yamanaka Mello, 57, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Xavier Rodriguez after pleading guilty in March to five counts of mail fraud and five counts of filing a false tax return.

Prosecutors say Mello, a civilian employee at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, stole the money and used it to purchase one lavish item after another, including $923,000 of jewelry in a single day in 2022.

Mello was a financial manager who handled funding for a youth program at the military base and determined whether grant money was available. She created a fraudulent group called Child Health and Youth Lifelong Development, prosecutors said.

-snip-

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/military-theft-extravagant-mello-children-e15c1ff0b7653397ee9096eb8314d41d

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US Army worker who stole nearly $109 million to buy mansions and luxury cars is sentenced (Original Post) Eugene Jul 2024 OP
"The Bold and The Greedy." Sounds like a day time soap opera. brush Jul 2024 #1
82 vehicles? I don't know the grants origin but if it's DoD that's not surprising underpants Jul 2024 #2
President Cheney sent $9 billion in cash on a pallet Submariner Jul 2024 #3
Not enough time. sinkingfeeling Jul 2024 #4

underpants

(186,204 posts)
2. 82 vehicles? I don't know the grants origin but if it's DoD that's not surprising
Tue Jul 23, 2024, 07:54 PM
Jul 2024

DoD accounting is horrible. On September 10, 2001 Rumsfeld held a press conference talking about the 1,400 (something like that) accounting systems used by DoD. Many were purchased through normal funding bills where a Congressman puts in something for a constituent who’d written a program. They can advertise is as “Used by the US Military

These systems don’t talk to each other.

I can’t remember what the day is called but there’s a day at the end of the fiscal year (September) when everything has to balance. It’s accounting, it has to balance. Journal entries are made. There’s no basis for them but everything balances.

Submariner

(12,627 posts)
3. President Cheney sent $9 billion in cash on a pallet
Tue Jul 23, 2024, 08:02 PM
Jul 2024

to Iraq. Huge bundles of 50/100$ bills piled 5 ft high, and under the guard of Cheney’s Halliburton/KBR.

A couple of years later, there were all sorts of stories on TV about big ranches being sectioned into ranchettes, mansions into mini-mansions, and all the boat building yards from Alabama through Texas were filled with big boat orders.

Hmmmmm. Probably just a coincidence.

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