Former State Department budget analyst pleads guilty to embezzling more than $650k

A former State Department senior budget analyst embezzled more than $650,000 from the agency over a two-year time period, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Washington, D.C. said.

Levita Almuete Ferrer, 64, of Montgomery Village, Maryland, pled guilty to embezzling the money between March 2022 and April 2024 while working in the department’s Office of the Chief of Protocol.

"She issued 60 checks payable to herself and three checks payable to another individual with whom she had a personal relationship. She printed and signed each check and then deposited all 63 checks, which totaled $657,347.50, into her personal checking and savings accounts," the Justice Department said in a news release.