Little justice for Tri-City woman in her 70s scammed out of $1.3M

A Tri-Cities woman in her 70s is embarrassed and heartbroken after her life was turned upside down by a scammer.

It started when she trusted a man posing as a bank employee when he told her someone at the bank was taking her money.

“I’m from a generation where we were raised to be trusting of officials,” she told the Tri-City Herald. “You just don’t think about it.”

After a series of wire transfers and checks that she believed was going into another account, the scammer managed to take more than $1.3 million in savings from her.

She has had to return to work years after retiring because her life savings was taken without any hope of getting it back.

Bank scam

The scam started when the victim saw a charge she didn’t recognize and called what she believed was the phone number for her bank in February 2025. When she called she was directed to what she thought was her bank’s fraud department.

She was connected with a man who identified himself as “Joshua.” He told her that there was someone inside her bank who was skimming money, and he could help her protect her money.

He began directing her to transfer money into what she believed was a secure account. After a few of those transfers, he then had her provide cash to a courier.

All the while Joshua kept in weekly touch with the victim, sometimes to ask for more money, sometimes to talk with her. She said he told her that he had kids and coached baseball.

The entire time she believed he was trying to protect her and keeping her money safe. It wasn’t until she tried to get the money back to pay for a surgery that she became suspicious. He kept putting her off.

Then she took a class about scams and realized she was in the middle of being defrauded.

In total, he took about $1.3 million that came from her late husband’s life insurance policy, prosecutors said.

Courier caught, Joshua missing

After discovering that she was being scammed, she reached out to Pasco police for help. Investigators told her to stop paying Joshua, but not to cut off contact. Instead, they provided money to help catch the scam artist.

On at least two occasions, the victim met with Nancy K. Jahnke, 69, of Oshkosh, Wis., and gave her $170,000, court documents said.

Detectives arrested Jahnke after doing a handoff of $100,000 on Feb. 5.

Jahnke admitted to being directed by Joshua to travel from Wisconsin to Pasco to pick up money from the victim. She was paid $5,000 for each trip.

She explained that she opened multiple bank accounts to deposit the money. She kept a portion for herself and then transferred the remainder into cryptocurrency wallets that Joshua controlled using Coin Flip Bitcoin machines.

The standalone devices have recently been caught up in controversy after Kennewick police revealed the machines helped scammers take more than $1 million from Tri-Citians. The city council voted to ban the machines earlier this year.

While police were able to catch Jahnke, Joshua has proven more elusive.

Franklin County Chief Deputy Prosecutor Julie Long said his phone number has been turned off, and they haven’t been able to track him down.

Only a small amount of the money, about $40,000, has been found, Long said on Tuesday. But the victim has not been able to access it.

Courier sentenced

After her arrest, Jahnke was held in the Franklin County jail. She pleaded guilty on Tuesday to first-degree theft and first-degree trafficking in stolen property.

The victim was hoping to see the woman face 10 years in prison, but state law limited the amount of time she could face to six months to a year in jail.

The victim told Judge Norma Rodriguez that she needed to return to work because of the fraud.

Prosecutors and the defense attorney recommended a six-month sentence. Long explained that they ended up with the agreement because Jahnke wasn’t the main suspect in the case.

“(The victim) is still out a lifetime of money,” Long said. “This defendant is not as culpable as the co-defendant, and what is more egregious is that she had this happen to herself by the same individual, so she knew the consequences and turned around and did it to another individual.”

Defense attorney Tim Dickerson agreed it was a tragic incident, and that his client has been trying to change her plea for the last month. Delays due to hospital stays and other trials have stopped that from happening.

“There’s never been an issue about her taking responsibility for it,” he said. “She regrets her actions and feels terrible about it.”

He noted that she only received $5,000 for each trip which was a small percentage of the money.

Jahnke apologized for her actions and said she has “paid dearly” while waiting in the Franklin County Jail.

Judge Rodriguez said she couldn’t agree with the recommendation, and sentenced Jahnke to a total of nine months in jail.

“She lost over $1 million and this woman has to go to back to work at her age,” Rodriguez said. “I can’t follow the recommendation, I’m sorry.”