Former administrator of leading POW/MIA group sentenced for $250,000 scam

By Matthew M. Burke / Stars and Stripes Staff Writer
The following story is being reprinted with the permission of Stars and Stripes, which retains all rights. The story was published March 7, 2025 on www.stripes.com.

A Virginia woman whose embezzlement nearly bankrupted the nation’s preeminent advocacy organization for American prisoners of war will serve time behind bars and pay restitution to the group, a federal judge in Virginia has ruled.

Jennifer Giorffino, a former administrator for the National League of Families of American Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia, had pleaded guilty Oct. 31 in federal court in Alexandria, Va., to a single count of wire fraud.

U.S. District Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles on Thursday sentenced Giorffino to three years and nine months in prison followed by two years of supervised release, according to court records. Giorffino will also be required to pay about $257,000 in restitution.

Prosecutors had sought the maximum penalty of four years and three months against the 54-year-old married mother of two. Giles recommended that Giorffino serve out her sentence at the minimum-security Federal Prison Camp Alderson in West Virginia.

Giorffino was hired in 2019 and began siphoning off donations for personal retail purchases in October 2022, the prosecutor’s sentencing recommendation stated.

In all, Giorffino took $257,259 from the nonprofit, which was founded in 1970 and is also known as the National League of POW/MIA Families.

In 1971, the league created the iconic black-and-white POW/MIA flag that flies over government and military institutions.

Giorffino also stole the identity of the organization’s chairwoman emeritus and acting CEO, Ann Mills-Griffiths, and fraudulently applied for at least 30 credit cards and lines of credit for additional spending, the document said.

She made over $36,000 worth of purchases on one card and paid off the cards every month until April 2024 using League funds.

Mills-Griffiths discovered the scheme after her credit card was declined at a restaurant, court documents said.

In February 2024, Giorffino opened a checking account in the league’s name and began diverting checks and online donations into the account, accumulating $29,746, records said.

The organization’s funds were nearly depleted by March 2024, but she forged bank statements and wrote checks she knew would bounce.

National League of Families of American Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia Needs your donations

As of March 13, 2025, the number of Americans Missing and Unaccounted-for from the Vietnam War is 1.573.

Since 1970, the National League of POW/MIA Families, has represented the many families of those still missing and unaccounted for and to hold the DPAA and U.S. Government accountable to their promises to pursue and expand their efforts globally while primarily focusing on Vietnam War Missing.

Visit pow-miafamilies.org to learn more, to donate, or to become members.

Giorffino gave the league’s board falsified bank statements at a meeting in April 2024 and stopped working for the organization soon after.

As a result of the embezzlement, the organization nearly ran out of money, records said

It was slated to be dissolved after a Jan. 31, 2023, vote by its board of directors but was saved less than two weeks later by an anonymous donor, league statements said previously.

Mills-Griffiths, who has led the organization since 1978, was in court Thursday. She told Stars and Stripes on Friday that everyone initially thought Giorffino “was an honest, kind, good person.”

“It was so purposeful and well-planned and greedy, as the court put it. … I’m just thankful it’s over and that justice has prevailed, and we are recovering,” Mills-Griffiths said.

As part of her sentence, Giorffino is barred from using existing lines of credit or opening new ones without approval of a probation officer. She must also participate in a mental health treatment program.

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