Adoption agency worker stole $1.2 million in Oregon, feds say. She’s going to prison
A 56-year-old woman was sentenced to nearly five years in federal prison after prosecutors said she defrauded a nonprofit adoption and surrogacy agency in Oregon and Washington out of more than $1.2 million while she was their bookkeeper.
Melodie Ann Eckland, of Hillsboro, Oregon, was charged with wire fraud, aggravated identity theft, filing a false tax return and willfully failing to collect or pay payroll taxes, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the District of Oregon said in a news release.
Eckland was sentenced to 54 months in prison after her employers caught her in the seven-year scheme, the news release states.
Her defense attorney, Jamie Kilberg, told McClatchy News Eckland’s sentencing was “excessive.”
“Ms. Eckland is, as she has been since her conduct was discovered, ready to accept responsibility and the Court’s judgment,” Kilberg said. “She is focused now on preparing her family for her absence, continuing to better understand and address the underlying issues that led to her committing these acts, and doing what she can to begin to make the victims whole.”
From 2011 until 2018, Eckland is accused of making wire transfers from her employer’s bank accounts and writing checks to herself.
She paid herself over $1.2 million from the adoption agency, logging the transactions in a separate QuickBooks account, according to court documents.
She also paid herself a “bonus” of more than $40,000 and wrote herself checks totaling about $22,500, prosecutors said.
She did not report any of it on her federal tax returns, the news release states.
To cover her tracks, she applied for more than five loans in the agency’s name, without their permission, documents show.
And she is accused of stealing more than $123,000 from a bank account for her dead brother-in-law’s estate before transferring the funds to her adoption agency’s bank account.
“Melodie Eckland used her position of trust within a local adoption agency to steal funds intended to help children across the world find loving families.” U.S. Attorney for the District of Oregon Scott Erik Asphaug said in the news release.
Eckland’s employer caught her in 2018 when the bank called about checks with forged signatures, sentencing documents show.
Eckland initially lied about the checks, but then admitted to taking a loan out in the adoption agency’s name, documents show.
“The mistakes I have made have affected not only everyone I speak of here, but so many more victims, directly and indirectly,” Eckland wrote in her sentencing memorandum. “I do know this, and I will work the rest of my life to make them financially whole not because I am told to pay restitution but because I want to and need to do the right thing.”
In addition to 54 months in prison, she was ordered to pay $1.6 million in restitution to the adoption agency and its owners, a bank, credit card company, family members and the IRS.
Prosecutors initially recommended Eckland serve 61 months in prison for the charges, but her sentencing was reduced by seven months.
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