According to the US Department of Justice, a former Sacramento resident was found guilty after more than $6.5 million meant for a school district was mistakenly sent to his bank account. William A. Sassman received the money after employees of the Tukwila School District in Washington were deceived into sending it to the wrong account. Part of the money was then used to purchase two expensive watches, worth over $500,000 combined. The case later led to a federal investigation and a jury verdict in June 2026.
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How did the $6.5 million reach Sassman’s account
In September 2019, the Tukwila School District in Washington mistakenly transferred more than $6.5 million to the bank account of William A. Sassman, then a Sacramento resident. According to evidence described by the US Department of Justice, district employees had been deceived into sending the money to Sassman rather than to the account belonging to a legitimate construction contractor.
The federal case focused not simply on how the transfer happened, but on what Sassman did after the money arrived and he became aware that it did not belong to him. The Department of Justice said Sassman was 58 when the jury found him guilty in June 2026. The verdict came after a four-day trial in federal court.
The money was used for high-end watches
Some of the money was quickly turned into luxury purchases. Sassman used the funds to buy two watches, one made by Patek Philippe and another by Richard Mille.
The Patek Philippe watch cost $195,000, while the Richard Mille watch cost $318,324. Together, the two purchases came to $513,324, making the watches a substantial part of the money he had received by mistake.
The purchases were among the personal spending described in the case. The Justice Department said Sassman also used some of the funds for other personal items.
At this point, the source of the money became important to the case because the school district eventually discovered the fraud and notified Sassman’s bank.
What happened after the bank froze the money
Once the school district reported the fraudulent transfer to Sassman’s bank, the account was frozen. The bank also informed Sassman that the money in the account had come from fraudulent proceeds.
According to the evidence presented at trial, Sassman knew that the money was stolen after the bank told him about its origin.
Instead of simply leaving the money untouched, he took another step involving the watches. The Justice Department said Sassman resold both watches and deposited the cheques from those sales into an account at another bank in Sacramento.
The jury found Sassman guilty after a four-day trial
On June 5, 2026, the US Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of California announced that a jury had found Sassman guilty of knowingly engaging in monetary transactions involving criminally derived property.
The FBI investigated the case, while Assistant US Attorneys Veronica M.A. Alegría and Zachary B.L. Malinski prosecuted it. US Attorney Eric Grant said the trial evidence showed that Sassman continued to use the funds after being told they did not belong to him.
The sentencing was scheduled for September 2026
Sassman's sentencing was scheduled for September 25, 2026, before US District Judge Dena Coggins.
The Justice Department said he faced a maximum statutory penalty of 10 years in prison and a fine of $250,000 or up to twice the amount of the laundered money.
However, the department made clear that the maximum possible penalty was not the same as the sentence he would necessarily receive. The actual sentence would be decided by the court after consideration of applicable statutory factors and the federal Sentencing Guidelines, which take various circumstances into account.
The case illustrates how a mistaken financial transfer can develop into a much larger legal matter when the recipient is informed that the money was obtained through fraud and continues to deal with the funds. In this instance, the mistaken payment involved more than $6.5 million, while two luxury watches alone accounted for more than half a million dollars in purchases.
