Lazaven Mitchell

Introduction

Lazaven Mitchell, 38, a resident of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, pleaded guilty in federal court to one count of false impersonation of a federal officer or employee — the federal charge that fits what prosecutors say was a months-long scheme in which he posed as a U.S. Department of Labor official to talk Pittsburgh businesses out of their retirement plans. Mitchell, a Pittsburgh-based licensed financial advisor and loan officer, entered the plea before Senior United States District Judge David Stewart Cercone, in a case announced by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Pennsylvania on November 2, 2026.

Background Information

According to the Court record at the plea, on multiple occasions between April 2024 and June 2024, Mitchell presented himself to local businesses as working for the Department of Labor’s Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA). He would contact businesses, identify himself as an EBSA employee, and request to review their retirement plans for compliance with the authorities governing retirement plans. The guise was not casual: Mitchell sent letters bearing the Department of Labor seal and an EBSA mailing address in Washington, D.C., turning a financial advisor’s cold outreach into correspondence that looked like federal regulatory business.

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation

Pleaded guilty; sentencing pending. Mitchell admitted impersonating an EBSA employee to seize retirement-plan business from Pittsburgh companies and is scheduled for sentencing on March 25, 2027.

The scheme’s mechanics, as advised to the Court, followed a repeatable script. After reviewing a business’s retirement plan, Mitchell would identify a compliance issue and recommend that the business terminate its current advisor and transfer the plan to him as the new plan administrator — including providing the owner a draft letter, ready for signature, terminating the incumbent advisor. In text messages with one business owner, Mitchell referenced having “a final determination from the DOL” and coming to retrieve “the documents for the Department of Labor inquiry.” To another owner he sent a fictitious business card bearing the EBSA name and crest, his own name under the title “Employee Benefit Advisor,” and an address for a suite inside the William S. Moorhead Federal Building.

False impersonation of a federal officer carries a maximum of three years in prison, a term that looks modest beside the conduct it punishes: the charge reaches the impersonation itself, while the plan transfers it produced would sit in civil remedies the release does not describe. Judge Cercone scheduled sentencing for March 25, 2027, and the fine exposure runs to the greater of $250,000 or twice the gross pecuniary gain to Mitchell — a formulation that puts his fee and commission stream from any transferred plans at the center of the sentencing math.

Public Reaction and Consequences

The documented reaction is institutional. Assistant United States Attorney Brendan J. McKenna is prosecuting the case, and the investigation that led to Mitchell’s prosecution was conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Department of Labor Office of Inspector General — the agency whose identity Mitchell borrowed. The release records no statement from Mitchell or his attorney and no comment from the affected businesses. The consequences fixed so far are the felony conviction itself, the pending sentencing, and the licensing exposure that follows a financial advisor’s guilty plea to a federal fraud-adjacent offense.

Current Status

Mitchell awaits sentencing before Senior Judge David Stewart Cercone on March 25, 2027, facing up to three years in prison and a fine of up to the greater of $250,000 or twice his gross pecuniary gain. His guilty plea resolved the impersonation count; the release does not state whether civil action by affected plan sponsors, disciplinary proceedings by licensing bodies, or forfeiture of his commissions will follow. Until sentencing, the record stands as: a licensed advisor who pleaded guilty to impersonating the regulator that oversees the very plans he solicited.

Impact on Their Career/Life

Mitchell built the scheme on his standing as a licensed financial advisor and loan officer, and the guilty plea converts that standing into the case’s chief collateral consequence: a federal fraud-adjacent conviction is a career-ending fact in the advisory business, inviting regulatory action on his licenses and the unwinding of client relationships the release does not yet document. At 38, a prison term of even the statutory maximum would be followed by supervised release into a profession effectively closed to him. The release records nothing further about his firm, book of business, or family.

Sources

• U.S. Attorney’s Office, Western District of Pennsylvania, “Pittsburgh Financial Advisor Pleads Guilty to Falsely Impersonating Department of Labor Employee”, November 2, 2026 — source