At 2:17 a.m., Deputy U.S. Marshal Sarah Mitchell received a shocking text from her mother: they had sold her house in Alexandria. Using an old power of attorney from her military deployment, her parents closed on the property for $850,000 and gave the money to her sister for a wedding.
What they didn’t know — and Sarah quickly realized — was that the house was a registered federal safe house currently sheltering Angela Moretti and her two children, key witnesses against the powerful Castellano crime family.
When Sarah alerted her superiors, the Marshals immediately launched an emergency extraction. Investigation revealed the buyer, Riverside Holdings LLC, was a shell company tied to organized crime. The sale had likely been a targeted attempt to locate and kill the protected family.
The Morettis were relocated in time, preventing what could have been a deadly breach.
Federal agents confronted Sarah’s parents at a family reunion. They insisted they were “just trying to help,” but had ignored red flags and kept the sale secret. Authorities determined they had been manipulated by the crime network — greedy and reckless, but not criminal masterminds. The funds were seized, and they now face serious civil penalties.
Though the witnesses were saved, the damage to Sarah’s family was permanent. By acting quickly, she protected innocent lives — but in doing so, she lost trust in her own parents.
That night, exhausted but certain, she understood one thing clearly: she had saved her witnesses.
And she had saved herself.