A Washington, D.C. mail worker was found guilty last week to fund a “luxurious lifestyle” by stealing more than $1.6 million in US Treasury Department and private party checks from mail, officials said.
From December 2020 to March 2023, U.S. Postal Service employee Hachikosela Muchimba, 44, changed his check to a bank account under his control, the District of Columbia’s U.S. Lawyers’ Office said in a news release Friday.
The bank’s surveillance video captured him as having deposited and withdrawn funds, the release said.
Muchimba used the proceeds to “finance a luxurious lifestyle that includes international travel, staying in luxury hotels and purchasing at gentlemen’s clubs,” the U.S. Lawyers’ Office said.
A ju apprentice on Thursday found that he was guilty of conspiracy to engage in theft of mail and bank fraud, theft of mail, bank fraud and financial transactions of property derived from designated illegal activities. The maximum penalty for bank fraud is 30 years prison, and mail theft is 5 years.
Muchimba was also found guilty of illegal procurement of citizenship or naturalization. He mistakenly told Citizenship and Immigration Officer that he had not committed a crime that he was not arrested when he applied to become a naturalized citizen. The crime has the biggest penalty of 10 years of imprisonment and the possibility of administrative change.
Muchimba is scheduled to be sentenced to August 8th and will remain in custody until then.
