Ex-Biden State Department Employee Pleads Guilty In Massive Fraud Scheme

A former State Department budget analyst who worked under the Biden Administration has admitted to embezzling over $650,000 from the agency during a two-year period, according to an announcement by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington, D.C.

Levita Almuete Ferrer, 64, a Maryland resident and senior budget analyst in the Office of the Chief of Protocol, acknowledged misusing her authority to sign checks tied to a State Department bank account between March 2022 and April 2024.

Prosecutors said Ferrer, also known as Levita Brezovic, used QuickBooks to help conceal the fraud. She would list herself as the payee on checks before printing them, and then edit the records to make it appear the payments were made to legitimate State Department vendors, obscuring her name in the system.

Ferrer issued 60 checks to herself and three more to someone with whom she had a personal connection. Each check was printed, signed, and deposited into her bank account, leading to $657,347.50 in fraudulent disbursements.

Ferrer pleaded guilty on Wednesday to theft of government property and is due for sentencing on September 18. She could face up to 10 years in federal prison. Ferrer has agreed to repay the full amount stolen as part of her plea deal and is subject to a forfeiture judgment for the same sum.

This case follows a separate announcement from acting D.C. U.S. Attorney Ed Martin, who recently recovered nearly $1 million in an unrelated fraud involving overbilling by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). An audit of the Sri Lanka@100 project revealed that the firm Stax had added undisclosed profits to employee salary proposals, violating the cooperative agreement with USAID and contradicting clear instructions prohibiting profit-making under that deal.