In a damning display of bureaucratic rot, Levita Almuete Ferrer, a former State Department senior budget analyst under the Biden administration, has pleaded guilty to embezzling more than $650,000 from the federal government—while Americans struggled under the weight of inflation, rising taxes, and economic uncertainty.
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington D.C., Ferrer, 64, siphoned $657,347.50 from a State Department checking account between March 2022 and April 2024. Trusted with signature authority in the Office of the Chief of Protocol, Ferrer abused her access to write and deposit 60 checks to herself, and three more to an individual with whom she had a personal relationship.
But it wasn’t just theft—it was deception layered with technical finesse. Ferrer used QuickBooks to mask her tracks, entering her name as the payee when printing the checks, then switching the listed payee in the system to match legitimate State Department vendors. To the untrained eye—or a cursory audit—it appeared above board. Only an audit trail could reveal her name was ever on those payments.
Ferrer, also known by the alias Levita Brezovic, now faces up to 10 years in federal prison. She has agreed to repay the full amount in restitution and accept a forfeiture money judgment matching the stolen sum. Her sentencing is scheduled for September 18.
Ferrer’s crime isn’t an isolated incident. Just days earlier, acting U.S. Attorney Ed Martin announced the recovery of nearly $1 million in a separate fraud case involving USAID. An administrative audit found the firm Stax had overbilled $850,000 by hiding profit in employee salaries under the guise of the Sri Lanka@100 initiative.
“This hidden profit violated the terms of the cooperative agreement,” Martin explained, citing deliberate deception and noncompliance.
Together, these back-to-back cases paint a grim picture of systemic vulnerabilities in federal oversight, especially in agencies tasked with diplomacy, foreign aid, and protocol.
While Washington preaches accountability and equity from the podium, behind the scenes, trusted bureaucrats have been exploiting the very system they’re paid to uphold. These are not low-level employees—they are senior analysts with budgetary authority and intimate access to taxpayer dollars.
Meanwhile, everyday Americans are being told to tighten their belts, accept higher gas and grocery prices, and endure the consequences of so-called “necessary” government spending.
It’s no surprise public trust in institutions continues to erode. These scandals don’t just reveal criminal behavior—they expose the fragility of internal controls and a disturbing lack of meaningful oversight in some of the government’s most sensitive departments.
