A former State Department analyst, once trusted with safeguarding taxpayer dollars, pleaded guilty to embezzling over hundreds of thousands of dollars from the federal government in yet another stunning example of bureaucratic corruption. While hardworking Americans were squeezed by inflation and rising taxes under the Biden administration, an employee working under the former president abused their position with little oversight or accountability.
According to the U.S. Attorney's Office in Washington, D.C., Levita Almuete Ferrer admitted to embezzling $657,347.50 from the State Department over a two-year span. The 64-year-old exploited her signature authority over a State Department checking account from March 2022 to April 2024. During that time, she worked as a senior budget analyst in the State Department’s Office of the Chief of Protocol. To conceal the embezzlement, she used QuickBooks to assign herself as the payee and print the checks. Afterward, she altered the payee information in the system to match legitimate State Department vendors, making the scheme difficult to detect. In total, Ferrer wrote 60 checks, depositing them into her personal checking account, along with three additional checks made out to an individual with whom she had a personal relationship.
“As a result, anyone viewing those entries in the Quickbooks system did not see Ferrer’s name as the payee on the checks unless they accessed an audit trail,” the Department of Justice said.
In her guilty plea, Ferrer agreed to repay the full amount stolen as restitution to the U.S. government and accept a forfeiture money judgment for the same sum. The Maryland woman faces up to 10 years in prison and is scheduled to be sentenced on September 18.
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