DC Woman Gets 1-Year Sentence For Stealing $200K From Nonprofits

WASHINGTON, DC — A Washington, D.C. woman was sentenced to just over one-year in prison for attempting to steal more than $200,000 from two nonprofit organizations for which she previously worked, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia.

Maxine Marie Williams, 49, was sentenced on Tuesday to 12 months and one day in prison after pleading guilty in April in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to one count of interstate transportation of stolen property.

In addition to sentencing her to prison, U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta ordered Williams to pay $179,500.57 in restitution and be liable for a forfeiture money judgment in the same amount.

Williams worked for one of the nonprofits from 2015 through March 2018, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia. Her job responsibilities included processing donation checks that were mailed to the office and preparing and mailing checks to vendors, service providers and individuals.

According to the government’s evidence, from November 2015 through March 2018, she stole 171 checks totaling $161,084.23 from the organization. Most of the checks were charitable contributions that were mailed to the organization’s office in D.C.

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Of the $161,084.23 in stolen checks, more than $140,000 was successfully deposited into accounts associated with Williams, including a $5,000 donor check that Williams deposited at an ATM in Hyattsville, Maryland, the prosecutors said.

After Williams was fired from the first organization in March 2018, she got a job with a nonprofit trade association in D.C. Between December 2018 and June 2019, according to the government’s evidence, Williams stole 33 checks totaling $43,398.93 from the second organization. She successfully deposited more than $38,000 into her bank account, the prosecutors said.

Officers from the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and Metropolitan Police Department investigated the case.