Former Department of Defense Employee Pleads Guilty to Defrauding the United States

WASHINGTON – A former civilian employee of the Department of Defense (DOD) has pleaded guilty in El Paso, Texas, to defrauding the United States of tens of thousands of dollars, Assistant Attorney General Alice S. Fisher of the Criminal Division announced today.

Lilia Delgadillo, 34, of El Paso, pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge David Briones in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas to one count of wire fraud.

Delgadillo was employed by the Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS), a component of DOD, and stationed at Ft. Bliss, Texas. Delgadillo admitted that from January 2005 through March 2007, she and a coworker, Saul Granados, devised a scheme to defraud the United States of up to $700,000 through the misuse of a DOD pay-processing computer system. Both Granados and Delgadillo improperly accessed the system and inputted fraudulent pay adjustments, which resulted in wire transmissions from DFAS headquarters in Indiana into Delgadillo’s bank account in Texas. Delgadillo also admitted that she coded the transactions to make it appear as though the payments were being made to a former member of the Arizona National Guard, when in fact they were deposited into Delgadillo’s account.

On Sept. 14, 2007, Granados pleaded guilty in El Paso to one count of wire fraud. He is scheduled to be sentenced on Dec. 18, 2007.

Delgadillo faces up to 20 years in prison, a fine of $250,000, and three years of supervised release following her prison term. Sentencing has been set for Jan. 28, 2007.

These cases are being prosecuted by Trial Attorneys Michael Ferrara and John P. Pearson of the Public Integrity Section, which is headed by Section Chief William M. Welch II. These cases are being investigated by a task force of agents from the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Division, the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigations Division, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Defense Criminal Investigative Service. The prosecution has received substantial assistance from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Texas and the U.S. Army Audit Agency.