GEORGIA WOMAN SENTENCED TO AN ADDITIONAL TWELVE MONTHS IN FEDERAL PRISON AFTER FAILING TO SURRENDER FOR SERVICE OF SENTENCE

United States Attorney Kurt L. Wall announced that U.S. District Court Judge John W. deGravelles sentenced Thanh Hoa Thi Bui, also known as Xena Bui, age 43, formerly of Valdosta, Georgia, to serve an additional twelve months in federal prison following her conviction for failing to surrender for service of a previously-imposed federal sentence. The Court further sentenced Bui to serve three years of supervised release following her term of imprisonment.

Bui was previously convicted in 2024 of wire fraud and making unlawful monetary transactions. In that case, she was found to have embezzled more than $1.6 million from her employer, a small business located on North Sherwood Forest Drive in Baton Rouge, where she worked as a bookkeeper. Over a three-year period from September 2017 through November 2020, Bui used her access to the company's bank account to make hundreds of fraudulent transactions, which she used (among other things) to pay the electricity and gas for a large chicken farm that she maintained in Mississippi and to make payments to a company in Covington, Louisiana, to which she owed money for real estate that she had purchased. Bui took extensive steps to conceal her scheme, and as she obtained proceeds from the scheme, she would quickly move the funds through her bank accounts, withdraw the funds in cash, and make other transactions, including at local casinos. The case was investigated by the United States Secret Service, with valuable assistance from the East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff's Office and the Louisiana State Police.

U.S. District Judge Brian A. Jackson sentenced Bui in November 2024 to serve 63 months in federal prison and to pay restitution of approximately $1.69 million to her victim. At the time of her sentencing, she was not in custody. Based on representations made by Bui to the Court regarding her health, the Court allowed her to remain released, subject to the existing conditions, but ordered her to surrender to the United States Bureau of Prisons to begin serving her sentence before 2:00 p.m. on February 10, 2025.

When Bui did not report to prison as ordered, the U.S. Marshals Service (USMS) immediately initiated an investigation into her whereabouts. On February 26, 2025, she was charged in a criminal complaint with failing to surrender for service of her sentence. On March 20, 2025, the USMS located Bui at a casino and hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada, and arrested her. A few days later, she was charged in an indictment with failure to surrender. In September 2025, Bui pled guilty to the new charge, and the sentence imposed today, by law, will run consecutive to the existing 63-month federal prison sentence from the previous case.

This case was investigated by the United States Marshals Service and was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Alan A. Stevens, who also serves as Senior Litigation Counsel.