A longtime Army civilian employee in San Antonio owned enough motorcycles to open her own Harley-Davidson dealership, dozens of ritzy homes and properties, and enough bling to make Kim Kardashian jealous.
The only problem for Janet Yamanaka Mello, 57, is that federal prosecutors said she paid for it all by conning the military out of some $100 million.
Ms. Mello is facing 150 years in prison if convicted of 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 has pleaded not guilty to the charges. Her trial is set to begin Feb. 12 in San Antonio.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office in San Antonio alleges that she went on a seven-year spending spree starting in late December after forming a company called Child Health and Youth Lifelong Development (CHYLD). She then applied for government grants to provide support services for the children of military service members.
One of the leading reasons for her success in bilking the taxpayer was her job at the Army’s Fort Sam Houston. She was a financial program manager for the post’s Child and Youth Services (CYS) department. Part of her job was to determine whether funds were available for businesses offering to provide services, prosecutors said.
“Additionally, Mello is alleged to have falsified the digital signature of one of her supervisors on multiple occasions,” federal prosecutors said.
Once the funding was confirmed and approved by her supervisor, Ms. Mello would send the documentation to the Defense Financial Accounting Service, with instructions to cut a check for CHYLD and mail it to a Post Office box she controlled.
“Mello then spent the money on clothing, jewelry, vehicles and real estate,” according to the federal indictment against her. “Mello went through this process over forty times during a six-year period, securing over $100,000,000 for herself in the process.”
The company, of which she was the sole proprietor, never provided services during the entirety of its existence. The Army’s Criminal Investigation Division and the Internal Revenue Service are investigating the alleged scam.
“No Army audit caught this, I can tell you that,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Justin Simmons said, according to the San Antonio Express-News.
Some military members on the Reddit social messaging site were surprised that someone was able to bilk the Army out of so much money merely by filling out a form and forging a supervisor’s signature.
“I can’t buy a surge protector without six people being involved,” one Reddit poster said.
The government wants to seize 31 homes and pieces of property Ms. Mello allegedly purchased, including a $3.1 million estate on 9,000 acres of Maryland’s Eastern Shore that includes a home with 8 bedrooms and 16 bathrooms. Most of the other properties on the list are located in the Hill Country of central Texas, according to court documents.
Prosecutors also asked the court to confiscate about $700,00 worth of jewelry; almost 70 sports cars, and luxury vehicles, including a 1954 Maserati, a 2023 Range Rover, and a 2022 Mercedes Benz, along with more than a dozen motorcycles, mostly current and vintage Harley-Davidson models.
• Mike Glenn can be reached at mglenn@washingtontimes.com.
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