Derrick Shareef, a Rockford, Ill., man, was sentenced today to 420 months (35 years) in prison by U.S. District Judge David Coar for attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction in connection with a plot to set off several grenades in garbage cans at a Rockford shopping mall in December 2006. (Read more)

Thomas Houston, former chief of the Gary, Indiana Police Department was convicted on a felony civil rights violation for using excessive force. The jury found that Houston used excessive force during the arrest of an Indiana man during a June 1, 2007, incident that gave rise to a federal civil rights indictment. (Read more)

The owner and the manager of Pecan Terrace Apartments in Lafayette, La., have agreed to pay up to $145,000 to resolve claims that they discriminated against families with children in violation of the Fair Housing Act. According to the Department’s complaint Pecan Terrace Apartments, LLC, and Taufiq M. Sekhani had and exercised a policy of refusing to rent second floor units to families with children and discouraging families with children from renting at the complex. (Read more)

A British citizen and former executive of British Airways World Cargo has agreed to plead guilty, serve eight months in jail and pay a criminal fine for participating in a conspiracy to fix rates for international air cargo shipments. (Read more)

The Department has reached an agreement with administrative officials of the Maine judiciary to help ensure that limited English proficient individuals seeking services throughout the State’s court system will have access to timely and competent language assistance. (Read more)

Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey today announced nearly $240 million in grant awards that support communities and law enforcement in preventing crime. (Read more)

The Department filed a lawsuit today against the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA), alleging that WMATA is engaged in a pattern or practice of religious discrimination, in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. (Read more)

The Department has reached a settlement today with First Lowndes Bank in Lowndes County, Ala., resolving allegations that the bank engaged in a pattern or practice of discrimination against African-American customers by charging them higher interest rates on manufactured housing loans, in violation of the Fair Housing Act (FHA) and Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA). (Read more)

The Department has reached a settlement today resolving allegations that Nationwide Nevada, LLC, and its general partner NAC Management Corp., engaged in a pattern or practice of discrimination by refusing to finance car loans for customers living on Indian reservations in Utah and Nevada. (Read more)

The Department filed a lawsuit today in federal district court in Nashville, Tenn., against Murphy Development, LLC, for failing to provide required accessible features for persons with disabilities at seven Nashville-area multi-family housing developments with more than 375 covered ground floor units. (Read more)

Illinois-based national retail pharmacy chain Walgreens has paid the United States and four participating states $9.9 million to resolve allegations of falsely billing the Medicaid program. (Read more)

Cephalon Inc. will enter a criminal plea and pay $425 million to resolve claims that it marketed three drugs for uses not approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). (Read more)

“The Offices of the Inspector General and Professional Responsibility dispelled many of the most disturbing allegations made in the wake of the removals. However, the Report makes plain that, at a minimum, the process by which nine U.S. Attorneys were removed in 2006 was haphazard, arbitrary and unprofessional, and that the way in which the Justice Department handled those removals and the resulting public controversy was profoundly lacking." (Read more)

The Department has entered into a consent decree with Spartanburg County, S.C., that if approved by the U.S. District Court, will resolve allegations that the County engaged in employment discrimination in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended (Title VII). (Read more)

The Department today filed a settlement that, pending court approval, will require the Housing Authority for the City of Winder, Ga., (WHA), to pay up to $490,000 to resolve allegations that it engaged in a pattern or practice of discriminating against African-American tenants and housing applicants. (Read more)

Adam J. Bonito and Christopher D. Giaquinto were charged today in an one-count information for carrying out a criminal conspiracy that interfered with the fair housing rights of two Muslim families living in Revere, Mass. The defendants were charged in U.S. District Court in Boston with repeatedly vandalizing and damaging vehicles parked in front of the duplex home shared by the two families in 2004 and 2005. (Read more)

A federal jury convicted a Las Vegas personal injury attorney of evading payment of almost $700,000 in federal income taxes. (Read more)

A leader of La Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13, was sentenced to life in prison for his participation in a racketeering enterprise. Ronald Fuentes, a/k/a "Spia," admitted at his plea hearing that as a leader of the MS-13 gang, he conspired with others to participate in a pattern of racketeering activity in the Nashville metropolitan area that included murder, attempted murder and witness tampering. (Read more)

A federal court barred Farai Chihota from preparing federal income tax returns for others. According to the government complaint in the case, Chihota’s Quick Return Tax Service operated in the Dallas area and prepared returns claiming fraudulent fuel tax credits. (Read more)

A physicist in Newport News, Va., was arrested today on charges of illegally exporting space launch technical data and services to the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and offering bribes to Chinese government officials. (Read more)

Cooper University Hospital agreed to pay the United States $3.85 million, plus interest, to settle allegations that it defrauded Medicare. The settlement resolves allegations that the hospital improperly increased charges to Medicare patients to obtain enhanced reimbursement from the federal health care program. (Read more)

In light of questions we have been asked regarding who will serve as election monitors, I want to inform the public that no criminal prosecutors will be utilized as election monitors on Election Day this year. This decision was made as a precaution and is not the result of any instance of intimidation or complaint regarding any specific incident.” (Read more)

A former Alcatel CIT executive was sentenced to 30 months in prison for engaging in an elaborate bribery scheme to obtain a mobile telephone contract from the state-owned telecommunications authority in Costa Rica by making more than $2.5 million in corrupt payments to Costa Rican officials, in violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. (Read more)

Brent Gross and Clifford Leroy Kidd faced federal judges in Michigan and Texas for tax-related charges. On Sept. 18, 2008, Gross was sentenced in Detroit to 21 months in prison for tax fraud. On Sept., 19, 2008, Kidd pleaded guilty in Austin, Texas, to one count of corruptly endeavoring to impede the Internal Revenue Service. (Read more)

Twenty-six alleged members of La Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13, have been charged in a superseding indictment that now charges 70 criminal counts. The first superseding indictment, with an additional fifteen count alleges that the 26 defendants conspired to commit violent crimes in aid of racketeering, resulting in murder during the course of their alleged participation in a racketeering enterprise, MS-13, in the United States and El Salvador. (Read more)

Project Safe Childhood (PSC) is a Department initiative launched in 2006 that aims to combat the proliferation of technology-facilitated sexual exploitation crimes against children. The threat of sexual predators soliciting children for physical sexual contact is well-known and serious; the danger of perpetrators who produce, distribute, and possess child pornography is equally dramatic and disturbing. (Read more)

A Ghanaian man pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy and alien smuggling in connection with his role in smuggling East Africans into the United States. (Read more)

The Justice Department announced today that it has reached a settlement agreement with the Commonwealth of Massachusetts resolving allegations that the Commonwealth violated the rights of Puerto Rican voters under Section 4(e) of the Voting Rights Act (VRA). (Read more)

A former State Department employee pleaded guilty to illegally accessing hundreds of confidential passport application files. (Read more)

A federal jury convicted the owner and operator of Pacific City Group Inc., a Los Angeles based durable medical equipment (DME) company, of defrauding the Medicare program. (Read more)

A federal grand jury in Oklahoma returned a one-count indictment today charging Kwik-Chek Food Stores Inc., a Texas-based convenience store company, and one of its agents, Jarrod “Judd” Thomas, with conspiring to fix the price of retail gasoline and diesel fuel sold in Antlers, Okla. (Read more)

A Redding, Calif., man pleaded guilty to one count of possession of child pornography and to three violations of his supervised release conditions. (Read more)

In September 2008, the Department will host the Project Safe Childhood National Conference. This conference will feature efforts to protect children from online predators and is intended to strengthen relationships across agencies and jurisdictions, especially among federal law enforcement and regional Internet Crimes Against Children task forces. (Read more)

MIAMI – A U.S. Marshals-led sweep targeting the “worst-of-the-worst” offenders in Florida has led to the arrest of 2,497 fugitives, Deputy Attorney General Mark R. Filip and U.S. Marshals Service Director John Clark announced today. (Read more)

A federal jury convicted the owner of Serv-Ease Office Systems Inc., a Glendale, Calif., company, for his role in a $1.3 million scheme to defraud First International Bank of Connecticut and the Export-Import Bank of the United States. (Read more)

The Department filed a lawsuit today against the owners and operators of an apartment complex in Kansas City, Kan., and against the former on-site manager of the complex, for violating the Fair Housing Act by discriminating against African-Americans on the basis of race, and by retaliating against a former employee of the complex for aiding and encouraging tenants to exercise the rights granted by the Fair Housing Act. (Read more)

Eighteen Los Angeles area residents were charged in eight separate indictments for their roles in Medicare fraud schemes totaling more than $33 million. Agents targeted durable medical equipment company owners, medical professionals and medical clinic owners who are alleged to have engaged in various schemes to defraud Medicare of $33,264,133 in fraudulent billing. (Read more)

A Federal Bureau of Investigation employee was sentenced to two years probation for accepting an illegal gratuity for the performance of his official duties. (Read more)

Miami physician’s assistant Thomas McKenzie pleaded guilty to defrauding the Medicare program in connection with a $119 million HIV infusion fraud scheme. McKenzie pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud and one count of submitting false claims to the United States. (Read more)

A federal grand jury in Miami, FL, has returned a Superseding Indictment charging eight individuals and eight corporations in connection with their participation in conspiracies to export U.S.-manufactured commodities to prohibited entities and to Iran. (Read more)

The Department will not oppose a proposal by the CEO Roundtable on Cancer (CRC) to develop and publicize model contract language for clinical trials of potential new cancer treatments. The Department said the language is not likely to be anticompetitive and can be used to help increase efficiency in contract negotiations, potentially reducing costs and shortening the time needed to begin clinical trials. (Read more)

CITGO, a Delaware corporation, pleaded guilty today and was sentenced to pay a $13 million fine for the negligent discharge of pollutants into two rivers in Louisiana in violation of the Clean Water Act. The $13 million fine is the largest ever for a criminal misdemeanor violation of the Clean Water Act. (Read more)

On Sept. 16 and Sept. 17, 2008, 175 individuals were arrested on charges related to an international drug trafficking cartel in a coordinated enforcement action by hundreds of international, federal, state and local law enforcement officials throughout the United States and Italy. (Read more)

A Florida producer has been charged by a federal grand jury in Billings, Mont., with distributing obscene DVDs through the mails. (Read more)

Three Carolina, Puerto Rico, Municipal Police Department officers were indicted by a federal grand jury today for civil rights and obstruction of justice violations. (Read more)

A leader of La Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13, was sentenced to 45 years in prison for his participation in a racketeering enterprise. (Read more)

A Las Vegas federal jury convicted Michael Haynes of one count of conspiracy to commit tax evasion via a scheme involving the fraudulent sale of One Voice Technologies Inc. stock. (Read more)

The former deputy associate director of Minerals Revenue Management at the Mineral Management Service of the U.S. Department of Interior pleaded guilty to a felony violation of the post government employment restrictions. (Read more)

The Justice Department today announced that it will monitor the primary election in Boston on Sept. 16, 2008, to ensure compliance with federal voting rights statutes, particularly the minority language provisions of the Voting Rights Act. (Read more)

Ira W. Gentry Jr. and Randy W. Jenkins were convicted of securities and tax fraud relative to an elaborate scheme to defraud UniDyn Corporation’s investors. (Read more)

Staten Island University Hospital agreed to pay the United States $74,032,565 to settle claims that the hospital defrauded Medicare, Medicaid and the military’s health insurance program, TRICARE. (Read more)

The Department is harmonizing several sets of Attorney General guidelines to produce a consolidated set of guidelines governing domestic FBI operations that is transparent and as consistent as possible between criminal and national security investigations and foreign intelligence collection. The Department views this as the next step in responding to post 9/11 requests that the FBI become better at collecting intelligence, and using that intelligence to prevent attacks. These proposed changes reflect precisely what was asked of the FBI after September 11, 2001. The terrorists who attacked us on that day did so from within the United States; and it is for that reason that the bipartisan 9/11 Commission, the Silberman-Robb Commission, and the Joint Congressional Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities each concluded that the FBI had to become more nimble and effective at collecting and analyzing intelligence. (Read more)

In a joint statement to the Illinois Task Force on Health Planning Reform, the Department and the Federal Trade Commission stated the agencies’ position regarding certificate-of-need laws, saying that the laws undercut consumer choice, stifle innovation and weaken markets’ ability to contain health care costs. This statement reiterates the agencies’ ongoing efforts to promote competition in health care. (Read more)

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit affirmed a four year prison sentence for tax defier crimes committed by Sherry Peel Jackson, a former Internal Revenue Service (IRS) employee and tax preparer. (Read more)

A federal grand jury has indicted 11 defendants for an alleged conspiracy to cheat 12 casinos across the country. The one-count indictment charges the 11 defendants each with one count of conspiracy to commit several offenses against the United States, including conspiracy to steal money and other property from Indian tribal casinos, and conspiracy to travel in interstate and foreign commerce in aid of racketeering. (Read more)

Miami physicians, Carlos Contreras, M.D., and Ramon Pichardo, M.D., each pleaded guilty to defrauding the Medicare program in connection with a $6.8 million HIV infusion fraud scheme. (Read more)

Since the attacks of September 11, 2001, the highest priority of the Justice Department has been to protect America against acts of terrorism. Despite repeated and sustained efforts by terrorists, there has not been another terrorist attack on American soil in the past seven years. During this time, the Justice Department has significantly improved its ability to identify, penetrate, and dismantle terrorist plots as a result of a series of structural reforms, the development of new intelligence and law enforcement tools, and a new mindset that values information sharing, communication and prevention. (Read more)

Five promoters of Florida-based tax defier organization, American Rights Litigators/Guiding Light of God Ministries, were charged with selling worthless "bills of exchange" and promoting other schemes to orchestrate tax fraud. (Read more)

On September 9, 2008, a federal grand jury in Washington, D.C. returned a five-count indictment against an Indian national and an Indian corporation on charges of supplying the Government of India with controlled goods and technology without the required licenses, U.S. Attorney Jeffrey A. Taylor, Acting Assistant Attorney General for National Security Patrick Rowan, and Darryl W. Jackson, Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Export Enforcement, announced today. (Read more)

An El Paso, Texas, federal grand jury returned an indictment today, charging two El Paso-based companies and two of their top executives with conspiracy to rig bids and allocate customers for certain contracts to supply and install doors and hardware for construction projects in the El Paso area. One of the executives was also charged with obstruction of justice for his efforts to impede the federal grand jury investigation. (Read more)

A civil injunction suit has been filed to permanently bar Kyle C. Kasten and his business, KJ & J Tax Services, from preparing federal returns for others. (Read more)

Miami resident Dilcia Marinez, 57, pleaded guilty today to her role in defrauding the Medicare program and laundering the proceeds of the crimes in connection with a $14 million HIV infusion fraud scheme. (Read more)

Steven Sandstrom, 23, and Gary L. Eye, 22, both of Kansas City, Mo., received multiple life sentences today for the racially-motivated murder of William McCay on March 9, 2005. The defendants were convicted on May 8, 2008. (Read more)

Daniel Dove, 26, formerly of Clintwood, Va., was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge James P. Jones to 18 months in prison for his role as a high-ranking administrator of a peer-to-peer (P2P) Internet piracy group. In addition, Dove was ordered to serve three years of supervised release and fined $20,000. A jury found Dove guilty of conspiracy and felony copyright infringement on June 26, 2008. (Read more)

I appreciate the opportunity to speak with you about the Division’s record and its role in preparing for the 2008 General Election. This is an unprecedented Election Year. We know that voters are registering in record numbers in states across the nation and record numbers of voters are expected at the polls this November 4th. Over the past several months, representatives of the Justice Department have frequently met with members of Congress, members of Civil Rights groups and state and local governments to discuss concerns and questions about the upcoming election and to address the Civil Rights Division’s efforts in preparing for this election cycle. (Read more)

Abner J. Schultz, a resident of Lake Havasu, Ariz., was sentenced today in federal court in Pocatello, Idaho for a criminal violation of the Clean Water Act (CWA) related to unlawful dredge and fill work along the Salmon River. (Read more)

Two companies that own and operate a Portland cement manufacturing facility near Dixon, Ill., have agreed to install state-of-the-art pollution controls to reduce harmful air emissions and pay an $800,000 civil penalty to resolve alleged violations of the Clean Air Act. (Read more)

A resident of Malaysia was sentenced to two years in prison on a conspiracy charge that arose from an international fraud scheme to "hack" into online brokerage accounts in the United States and use those accounts to manipulate stock prices. (Read more)

Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey, Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division Grace Chung Becker, and other senior officials of the Department met today with leaders of dozens of civil rights groups, as well as national organizations representing state and local officials, secretaries of state and attorneys general offices from across the country, to review plans to protect voting rights in the upcoming federal election. (Read more)

The Department filed a lawsuit today against Darwin Kenneth Morgan and his company DK Morgan Consolidated LLC, for violating the Fair Housing Act in the rental of mobile homes and mobile home lots at Morgan Mobile Home Park in Bloomingdale, Ga. (Read more)

Ericka Cortez, the girlfriend of a member of MS-13, was sentenced today to 46 months in prison for her participation in a racketeering enterprise. The RICO charge to which Cortez pleaded guilty charged that she and others involved in the MS-13 gang conspired to participate in a pattern of racketeering activity in the Nashville metropolitan area, including murder, attempted murder and witness tampering. (Read more)

On Sept. 9, 2008, the Department will monitor the primary elections in New York (Manhattan), Kings (Brooklyn), and Queens Counties, N.Y., to ensure compliance with federal voting rights statutes, and specifically the minority language provisions of the Voting Rights Act. (Read more)

A federal district court in Las Vegas has sentenced tax defier Irwin Schiff to 11 months in prison for criminal contempt. U.S. District Judge Kent J. Dawson reinstated 15 criminal contempt convictions imposed during Schiff’s 2005 trial for promotion of tax defier schemes. (Read more)

The Department today issued a report informing consumers, businesses and policy makers about issues relating to monopolization offenses under the antitrust laws. The report, “Competition and Monopoly: Single-Firm Conduct Under Section 2 of the Sherman Act,” examines whether and when specific types of single-firm conduct may or may not violate Section 2 of the Sherman Act by harming competition and consumer welfare. (Read more)

The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a previous ruling by the U.S. District Court in Detroit revoking the U.S. citizenship of John (Ivan) Kalymon because of his participation in violent acts of persecution while serving during World War II as an armed member of the Nazi-sponsored Ukrainian Auxiliary Police in German-occupied L’viv, Ukraine. (Read more)

A federal court in Nevada has convicted a former Las Vegas tax preparer, Jeffrey Dean Hubacek, of criminal contempt of court. (Read more)

Four individuals were arrested on charges that they and their company, Nexus Technologies Inc., paid bribes to various Vietnamese government officials in exchange for lucrative contracts to supply equipment and technology to Vietnamese government agencies, in violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. (Read more)

Certified Public Accountant (CPA) Stephen F. Petersen of Coalville, Utah; accountant Brent Metcalf of Cottonwood, Utah; and CPA Reed H. Barker of Littleton, Colo., have been sentenced to prison for their roles in a tax fraud conspiracy. (Read more)

Former lobbyist Jack A. Abramoff was sentenced today to 48 months in prison and ordered to pay $23,134,695 in restitution to victims based on his guilty plea to conspiracy, honest services fraud and tax evasion charges. (Read more)

A federal grand jury returned a superseding indictment against a civilian contractor for allegedly paying bribes to Army contracting officials at Camp Arifjan, an Army base in Kuwait, and for committing honest services fraud in connection with the same conduct. (Read more)

The Department filed a one count criminal complaint charging William Gould with interference with employment by threat of violence, a Class A misdemeanor. The complaint alleges that Gould placed a hangman’s noose in an area where his African-American colleague would find it, in an attempt to interfere with his colleague’s federally protected employment activity, and because the colleague was African-American. (Read more)

Former Cincinnati landlord, James G. Mitchell, and his company, Land Baron Enterprises, agreed to pay $1 million in monetary damages and a civil penalty, after admitting that they violated the Fair Housing Act (FHA). This is the largest monetary settlement the Department has ever obtained in a case alleging sexual harassment violations under the FHA. (Read more)

Johnson Matthey Inc., the owner and operator of a gold and silver refining facility in Salt Lake City, pleaded guilty today to a felony violation of the Clean Water Act for failing to properly report wastewater discharges at the facility. The former plant manager and former general manager both pleaded guilty to making false statements and were sentenced by Dee Benson, U.S. District Judge for the District of Utah. (Read more)

On Wednesday, September 3, 2008, a federal jury convicted retired University of Tennessee professor Dr. J. Reece Roth, after a seven day trial, of illegally exporting military technical information relating to plasma technology designed to be deployed on the wings of drones operating as a weapons or surveillance systems. (Read more)

The Civil Rights Division, along with several other federal agencies, held a national conference today on providing services to individuals with limited English skills. Approximately 450 representatives from federal, state and local agencies, along with community organizations and interpreters and translators from around the country gathered today to promote and share ideas to ensure that limited English proficient (LEP) individuals have meaningful access to programs and activities as required by Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Executive Order 13166. (Read more)

Albert "Jack" Stanley, a former officer and director of a global engineering, construction and services company based in Houston, pleaded guilty today to conspiring to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) by participating in a decade-long scheme to bribe Nigerian government officials to obtain engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contracts and to conspiring to commit mail and wire fraud as part of a separate kickback scheme. (Read more)

Juan Luis Cadena-Sosa was sentenced today on federal civil rights violations for conspiring to smuggle Mexican women and girls into the United States and forcing them to engage in prostitution by means of intimidation, violence and threats of physical harm. (Read more)

Cesar Navarrete, Geovanni Navarrete, Villhina Navarrete, Ismael Michael Navarrete and Antonio Zuniga Vargas pleaded guilty to charges relating to a scheme to enslave and Mexican and Guatemalan nationals and compel their labor as farmworkers. (Read more)

A federal court has been asked to bar Debra Windham, a Chicago tax preparer, from preparing federal tax returns for others. (Read more)

In the wake of Hurricane Gustav and resulting recovery efforts, the Hurricane Katrina Fraud Task Force is reminding members of the public to report any instances of alleged fraudulent activity related to Hurricane Gustav. (Read more)

Attorney General Mukasey announced the appointment of Juan P. Osuna to be the Chairman of the Board of Immigration Appeals. The Board of Immigration Appeals is part of the Executive Office for Immigration Review, and is responsible for hearing appeals of decisions rendered by immigration judges or certain Department of Homeland Security officers. (Read more)

A former managing director of ITXC Corporation was sentenced to serve five years probation, including three months of home confinement and three months in a community confinement center for his role in a foreign bribery scheme involving telecommunications contracts in Africa. (Read more)

Michael J. Garcia, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced today the indictment of Aafia Siddiqui on charges related to her attempted murder and assault of United States nationals and officers and employees. Siddiqui is scheduled to be arraigned on the Indictment on Thursday, September 4, 2008, at 11:30 a.m. by United States District Judge Richard M. Berman in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. (Read more)

Two former managers of the Bank of China and their wives were convicted by a federal jury of racketeering, money laundering, international transportation of stolen property as well as passport and visa fraud. (Read more)

The ex-boyfriend of a former Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) social work associate pleaded guilty for his role in a scheme to defraud the United States of the associate’s honest services in connection with her work finding suitable housing and daily care for mentally ill and disabled military veterans. (Read more)