In Washington, prosecutors said Mario Bustamante Leiva stole Kristi Noem’s purse while she was dining at a restaurant under Secret Service protection, and the judge imposed a three-year prison sentence after a guilty plea.
According to the U.S. attorney’s office, Bustamante Leiva grabbed Noem’s Gucci handbag from the floor at a restaurant where she was eating with her family in April 2025. Prosecutors said he did not recognize Noem when he took the purse, which they said included credit cards and about $3,000 in cash.
The office said police recovered the purse from Leiva’s motel room. Prosecutors added that the theft was part of a broader sequence of alleged wrongdoing in the capital, including the use of credit cards in fraudulent transactions.
In a statement, Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, said Bustamante Leiva “came to Washington illegally to prey on citizens of the district,” and that “his pattern of theft ends here.” Pirro’s statement framed the sentence as concluding what prosecutors described as a theft pattern in Washington.
Noem previously acknowledged the incident in a statement last year, using initials to identify her in court filings. In that statement, Noem referred to Bustamante Leiva as a “a career criminal who has been in our country illegally for years.”
Prosecutors said Bustamante Leiva pleaded guilty in November to three counts of wire fraud and one count of first-degree theft. They said he was charged and convicted in cases involving robbing two other people and charging fraudulent purchases to their credit cards.
The U.S. attorney’s office also linked the case to another suspect, Cristian Montecino-Sananza. Prosecutors said Montecino-Sananza was sentenced in March to 13 months of incarceration for his role in one of the other thefts, after Bustamante Leiva and Montecino-Sananza were charged together.
After sentencing, the U.S. attorney’s office said Bustamante Leiva, a 50-year-old native of Chile, faces deportation in addition to the three-year prison term imposed by U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden.