FLORIDA – A Pinellas County man has been sentenced for wire and bank fraud offenses related in part to tuition money stolen from the private school where he worked, said the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Florida (USAO).
James John Melis, 54, of Largo, was sentenced last week to four years and three months in federal prison by U.S. District Judge Kathryn K. Mizelle for bank fraud and wire fraud.
As part of his sentence, the court entered an order of forfeiture in the amount of $439,177, the proceeds of the charged criminal conduct. The court also ordered Melis to pay $684,000 in restitution, representing the offenses’ loss amount.
Melis pleaded guilty on March 20, 2023.
According to court documents, Melis was involved in two fraud schemes. In the first, Melis abused his position as a business manager at a private school in Hillsborough County by fraudulently attaching his personal bank account to one of the school’s financial accounts.
When parents made tuition payments, Melis initiated fraudulent electronic funds transfers to his personal account. He reportedly spent the stolen funds on travel and luxury items, including jewelry.
In the second scheme, Melis carried out a mortgage origination fraud against a financial institution for two properties that he owned, said the USAO.
According to court documents, to deceive the lender into believing that he was a qualified borrower, Melis used the personal identification information of another person on loan applications and prepared and submitted false and fraudulent IRS income tax returns, fictitious satisfactions of mortgages falsely representing that his properties had equity and bogus lease agreements falsely showing he received substantial rental income.
The financial institution approved and funded both mortgage loans based on Melis’s misrepresentations. The mortgage loans were purchased and guaranteed by Fannie Mae.
This case was investigated by the Federal Housing Finance Agency – Office of Inspector General and Federal Bureau of Investigation. Special Assistant United States Attorney Chris Poor prosecuted it. Assistant United States Attorney James A. Muench is handling the forfeiture.
