Jarrett Lewis, Finance Director, Indicted for Embezzling from DC Non-Profit

Friday, September 6, 2024

WASHINGTON – Jarrett Lewis, 44, of Washington, D.C., was arrested and charged with embezzling over $320,000 from a District non-profit advocacy organization, according to an indictment unsealed today.

            The charges were announced by U.S. Attorney Matthew M. Graves and FBI Acting Special Agent in Charge David Geist, of the Washington Field Office’s Criminal and Cyber Division.

            Lewis was arrested yesterday. The indictment alleges that between October 2021 and October 2022, while serving as Director of Finance for the non-profit, Lewis perpetrated a scheme to defraud his employer. On at least 35 occasions, Lewis used his position to misdirect hundreds of thousands in payments to bank accounts he controlled, while falsely designating the payments to a vendor for “digital” services and creating other false documentation to hide the embezzlement. Lewis also allegedly misused the organization’s credit card on at least eleven occasions to purchase airfare for travel by Lewis and his friends and family.

            Lewis is charged with nine counts of wire fraud.  If convicted, he would face up to 20 years in prison. 

            This case was investigated by the FBI’s Washington Field Office. It is being prosecuted by the Fraud, Public Corruption, and Civil Rights Section of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia.

            An indictment is merely an allegation and all defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.