Former Biden State Department Budget Analyst Pleads Guilty to Embezzling More than $650,000
A Former budget analyst for Joe Biden has pleaded guilty to embezzling more than $650,000 from the State Department over a two-year period, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington, D.C.
64-year-old Levita Almuete Ferrer of Maryland, admitted that she abused her authority to sign checks for a State Department checking account between March 2022 and April 2024 while working as a Senior Budget Analyst in Biden’s State Department’s Office of the Chief of Protocol.
She wrote 60 checks to herself and three checks made out to another person who she had a personal relationship with. She printed and signed each check and then deposited all 63 checks, which totaled more than $657,000 into her personal checking and savings accounts.
Ferrer tried to hide her scheme by using a Quickbooks account at the State Department.
After printing out the checks, she changed the name in Quickbooks from herself to an actual State Department vendor.
So that way, anyone looking at the entries did not see her name on the checks unless they followed an audit trail.
U.S. District Judge Christopher R. Cooper accepted Ferrer’s guilty plea to theft of government property. She will be sentenced on September 18.
She faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.
As part of her plea agreement, Ferrer agreed to pay back the money she stole in restitution to the U.S. government.
