Federal prosecutors say a 57-year-old Aurora man posed as a relative of a deceased Greek benefactor to drain a trust meant to fund cancer research overseas, siphoning off securities, dividends and hundreds of thousands of dollars in California unclaimed funds over roughly a year. Jody Millard now faces 10 counts of mail fraud and 25 counts of wire fraud in federal court in Cleveland.
According to Cleveland.com, federal prosecutors accuse Millard of swindling more than $2 million from a trust set up to help fight cancer in Greece, though a related civil complaint put the fraudulently obtained total at more than $1.99 million in securities and dividends, according to court filings. Cleveland.com's own reporting separately described the loss between August 2021 and September 2022 as about $1.9 million in securities and dividends taken from the trust.
The trust at the center of the case, known as the Spilios Mousalimas Trust, was established in 1999 by Spilios Mousalimas, who died in 2006, the outlet reports. His trust was set up to fund the University of Athens' cancer research department and the research department of Panarcadia Evangelismos, a public hospital in Tripolis, the capital of Mousalimas' home region in Greece.
A Fabricated Family Connection
Millard had no affiliation with the trust or the Mousalimas family, according to the indictment cited by the same outlet. Prosecutors say he nonetheless falsely claimed to be a relative of Mousalimas and created a fake document asserting he was both trustee over the trust and a beneficiary of its dividends and securities.
Investigators say Millard sent those fabricated documents to Equiniti, described in the report as a licensed stock transfer company. He allegedly claimed he had lost certificates for thousands of shares of PG&E Corp. and Southern Company, then created fake tax identification numbers and directed the resulting payouts into his own bank account.
California Unclaimed Funds Also Targeted
The scheme did not stop with stock payouts. Millard is also accused of using false information to steal unclaimed funds in California that were owed to the trust, submitting fake documents to state officials while claiming to be the rightful beneficiary. The state sent him two checks totaling more than $629,000, per the report.
Millard was released from custody on a $20,000 unsecured bond after pleading not guilty at his arraignment last week, the outlet notes. His attorney, Joe Gorman, told the outlet he had not yet received any of the evidence in the case and declined further comment.
A Parallel Civil Fight in San Francisco
Separate from the criminal case, the trust's own trustees, Fani Kokkoros and Nick Tarlso, sued Millard and Equiniti in federal court in San Francisco in 2025, and that lawsuit remains ongoing, according to Cleveland.com. Court records reviewed by the outlet show the case has already produced one significant ruling: in May 2026, Judge Edward M. Chen granted Fifth Third Bank's motion to dismiss the claims against it, finding, per the filing, that the court lacked personal jurisdiction over the bank.
The parties in that civil case also sat for an early neutral evaluation on June 5, 2026, but the case did not settle, according to a docket entry reviewed on PacerMonitor. It remains unclear whether any of the trust's stolen assets or the California funds have been recovered.
