Smithsonian workers charged in $400k parking fee theft

Three parking lot attendants at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum have been arrested in a scheme that allegedly cost the Chantilly annex $400,000 in lost parking revenues.

Freweyni Mebrahtu, 45, of Sterling, Meseret Terefe, 36, of Silver Spring, and Genete Yigzu, 46, of Alexandria, were charged with embezzling and stealing federal money belonging to the Smithsonian Institution, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia.