A D.C. city worker accused of trading about $1.4 million worth of welfare benefits for sexual favors and cash pleaded guilty Thursday to one count of bribery of a public official.
Department of Human Services worker Demetrius McMillan, 48, arranged nearly 800 fraudulent transactions of cash and food benefits to more than 300 people, most of them women. In exchange, he received more than $380,000 in cash and sexual favors, prosecutors said.
MacMillan, who worked as a social services representative with the agency at one of its locations in Southeast D.C., exchanged text messages of a sexual nature with about 50 of the women and received sexual favors from as many as 20, prosecutors said.
As part of his plea agreement, MacMillan agreed to pay back the $1.4 million in fraudulent benefits as restitution and pay an additional forfeiture money judgment. Authorities already seized nearly $75,000 they found during a search of his D.C. house late last year.
MacMillan is set to be sentenced June 19. Under sentencing guidelines, he faces a likely sentence of between 9 to 11 years behind bars, according to prosecutors.
Thomas Abbenante, MacMillan’s lawyer, said his client “is very sorry. He admitted his guilt at the first opportunity and will say more at his sentencing.”
This is the second employee of D.C.’s human-services agency to be involved in welfare corruption investigation in the past month. Former employee Gary T. Holliday, who worked as a policy analyst for the agency, pleaded guilty last month to embezzling more than $400,000 from the food stamp program and putting it into a fake account, which he then accessed using a benefits card.
Holliday is also set to be sentenced in June.
WTOP’s John Domen and Jack Moore contributed to this report.
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