Son given jail time and fine for cashing father’s VA checks

Another man whose father was a member of the famed 442nd Regimental Combat Team during World War II will spend time in jail for cashing disability checks sent to his dead father.

Glenn Yakuma pleaded guilty in March to stealing money belonging to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

U.S. District Chief Judge Susan Oki Mollway on Monday sentenced Yakuma, 65, to five years of probation. However, as part of that probation, Mollway ordered Yakuma to spend 30 days behind bars, on weekends, for 10 consecutive weeks.

She also ordered him to repay the VA $86,802.

Yakuma’s father, Mitsuo "Battleship" Yakuma, died Dec. 22, 2010, at age 89.

During the war he was a member of the 442nd’s I Company, 3rd Battalion, which sustained heavy casualties during the rescue of a Texas battalion in the Vosges Mountains of France.

The younger Yakuma, himself a veteran of the Marine Corps, continued to cash his father’s VA disability checks for 30 months after his father died. He said he reported his wrongdoing to a VA physician who reported it to authorities.

He is the second son of a 442nd veteran sentenced to jail in the past two years for cashing his dead father’s VA disability checks.

In March 2013, Charles T. Takahashi, 62, of Maui was sentenced to a year in jail for cashing disability checks for more than six years after his father died. He was also ordered to repay the VA $202,652. His father, Suguru A. Takahashi, died March 2, 2006, at age 85.