Federal finance official sentenced for steering contracts to friend’s firm

A former top financial official at the U.S. African Development Foundation was sentenced to four months in prison after a multi-year scheme in which he directed government contracts to a friend’s company, accepted cash payments in return and repeatedly lied to federal agents when confronted, U.S. Attorney Jeanine Ferris Pirro announced.

Mathieu Zahui, 59, of Fairfax, Virginia, who served as Director of Financial Management at the U.S. African Development Foundation, pleaded guilty Feb. 23, 2026, before Chief Judge James E. Boasberg in U.S. District Court to one count of receiving a gratuity as a public official and one count of making false statements to federal law enforcement. In addition to the four-month prison term, Judge Boasberg ordered Zahui to serve 12 months of supervised release. Prosecutors had sought a 21-month sentence.

According to court documents, Zahui joined ADF as a budget analyst in 2010 and rose over 15 years to become its Finance Director, effectively serving as the agency’s chief financial officer with authority to review and approve invoices paid with taxpayer funds. Beginning in December 2020, he also served as the agency’s Contracting Officer Representative and received specific training on his obligation to avoid conflicts of interest.

Rather than honor those obligations, prosecutors said, Zahui in March 2020 directed ADF to award his friend’s company a series of sole-source contracts — exempting it from competitive bidding — for purported logistical support services the company never performed. The contracts, valued at approximately $173,640, $350,544 and $93,200, exceeded the $100,000 cap on sole-source awards. Zahui approved invoices he knew were illegitimate and unsupported by actual work, according to court filings.

Zahui also arranged for other ADF contractors performing legitimate work to route payments through his friend’s company, allowing the friend to collect markups ranging from 17% to 66% despite performing no legitimate work, prosecutors said. In one instance, Zahui directed a staffing company to issue a $120,000 invoice to his friend’s company, which had no involvement in the underlying work. The friend’s company then submitted a $140,653 invoice to ADF, generating more than a $20,000 markup that Zahui approved.

Over roughly three years, the friend’s company submitted more than 20 such pass-through invoices and collected approximately $134,886 in markups. Prosecutors said Zahui also ensured invoices described the services as logistical support to avoid scrutiny from the Bureau of Fiscal Service and, in one instance, directed another contractor to revise an invoice description falsely to reflect logistical services.

In exchange for steering the contracts and approving the fraudulent invoices, Zahui received $12,000 in eight separate cash payments, according to court documents.

When federal agents interviewed Zahui in January 2024, he denied receiving any benefits and claimed he and his friend communicated only a few times a year. Phone records and emails later revealed they had been in contact nearly every day during some periods. He again lied to investigators during a second interview in February 2024, prosecutors said.