Criminal Division
I GENERAL OVERVIEW
The Criminal Division is the largest of the District's divisions. Assistant United States Attorneys in this Division evaluate investigative reports from federal, state and local law enforcement agencies and determine whether to prosecute. Prosecutors present information to grand juries and represent the United States in federal criminal trials.
Supervised by the Criminal Division Chief, the District's Criminal Division has over fifty prosecutors assigned to the Dallas headquarters office and the Fort Worth, Lubbock, and Amarillo branch offices. Each of the branch offices has its own Supervisory Assistant United States Attorney and Supervisory Assistant United States Attorneys are also located in the Dallas Headquarters office. All offices focus on areas of criminal law such as General Crimes, Fraud/Corruption, Narcotics/Violent Crime, and Appellate Law.
II GENERAL CRIMES
General Crimes includes a variety of criminal matters including immigration offenses and firearms violations prosecuted under Texas Exile.
Since the Northern District of Texas extends to within thirty-five miles of the Mexican border, the District's highways and interstates serve as conduits for alien smuggling. Immigration crime within the District is varied and involves types associated with both border and "interior" districts. Numerous defendants are convicted of criminal immigration offenses each year in the District. In 1999, 97% of all defendants convicted of immigration offenses were sentenced to prison terms. Some businesses, particularly light industry and some restaurant chains, have engaged in smuggling and harboring illegal aliens as a cheap labor source. In these instances, their illegal immigration and employment status are known by the employer and concealed from authorities with fraudulent documentation.
With a zero tolerance policy on gun crimes, Texas Exile, a state/federal partnership, gives special attention to prosecuting federal gun law violations in the federal court system where sentences are considerably longer. "Exile" comes from the idea that after swift, successful, severe federal prosecution, the defendant will be "exiled" from the community. The District has coordinated with the Texas Attorney General's Office to implement the Texas Exile/Safe City program in Dallas, Fort Worth and Lubbock to specifically target felons possessing firearms. These programs have been immensely successful and criminals seem to be getting the message that "gun crime means hard time."
III FRAUD/CORRUPTION
The District recognizes that federal prosecution is the most effective tool against most categories of white collar criminal conduct occurring in North Texas. In no particular order of magnitude, the District's major fraud/corruption priorities include financial institution fraud, health care fraud, public corruption and government fraud, fraud in and through the use of communication facilities, computer attacks on critical infrastructures, electronic theft of sensitive, proprietary or financial information, and telemarketing or other securities-type fraud against consumers and business.
Financial Institution Fraud
The Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex is a regional financial center with a large presence of banks, investment companies, insurance underwriters, and related financial providers. As the area's economy continues to expand, the criminal financial threats to citizens, businesses and governmental entities of the District are diverse and consequential. Through the 1980's and into the early 1990's, investigative and prosecutive resources were consumed by the fraud fallout of hundreds of failed banks and savings and loans. Now, external fraudulent attacks on banks is the major financial institution fraud committed in the District.
Health Care Fraud
Texas ranks third in the nation in health care expenditures. The Government Accounting Office recently estimated that there was more than $3.2 billion in health care fraud losses in the Northern District of Texas in calendar year 1998. The most prevalent types of health care fraud committed in the District involve home heath care, staged automobile accidents, hospital-related fraud, provider fraud, and pharmaceutical fraud.
Public Corruption
Although not widespread, public corruption is an egregious and insidious criminal problem in the District. The District will continue to combat corruption through the prosecution of criminal wrongdoing by elected, appointed, and sworn officials and employees at all levels of government when appropriate.
Government Program Fraud/Environmental Fraud
The federal government has a significant presence in North Texas through direct and indirect program funding and extensive government, specifically defense, contracting. While the economy is not based on heavy industry, waste dumping and the improper disposal of hazardous waste are environmental concerns.
Research has identified pervasive threats of fraud and deception against government programs. These include fraudulent government procurement and false program certifications, counterfeit and bogus parts supported by false airworthiness certification in the commercial airline industry, fraud in HUD's housing benefits program, and unlawful hazardous waste disposal.
Computer Related Crime
Virtually any white collar crime can be committed through the use of computers and the Internet. It is, in fact, a rare economic crime investigation or prosecution that does not include evidence stored or transmitted in electronic form.
Computer crime in the "traditional" sense includes three areas of significant threats: internal threats, vandalism by outsiders, and the theft of intellectual property in electronic form. In North Texas, computer sabotage, theft of computer services, insider hacking and other internal criminal employee activity are of serious concern. There has been a significant increase in the theft of intellectual property through electronic means and prosecutions have ranged from software piracy involving millions of dollars of copyright-protected operating programs, to the outright embezzlement, through economic espionage, of proprietary electronic trade secrets.
Business Crime and Fraud
Crimes by and against businesses in the District are limited only by the imagination. Businesses may be victimized by embezzlers, self-dealers, commercial bribers, or any perpetrators of fraud. Most schemes include an instrumentality of interstate commerce or affect interstate or international trade. Prosecution guidelines of this office allow for the federal prosecution of any business fraud in which there is federal jurisdiction with victim losses that exceed $25,000.
Businesses also engage in criminal fraud. Criminal corporate activities in this District generally fall into one of these categories: telemarketing, consumer fraud, or securities fraud. Investment or securities fraud is a growing problem. It takes many forms but generally includes "prime bank note" schemes, schemes that market unregistered securities in the form of limited and general partnerships, and oil and gas schemes. There are also instances of insurance company fraud committed by duping unsuspecting victims into believing they are purchasing bona fide insurance policies.
IV NARCOTICS/VIOLENT CRIME SECTION
The diversity of North Texas offers an extensive marketplace for the distribution of all drugs. Its well-developed infrastructure of commercial enterprise, transportation networks, and international finance lures illicit narcotic activities. Significant seizures confirm that North Texas has become a strategic transit point for the movement of narcotics, while it also serves as a major nationwide distribution center. Although prominent in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, other areas of the District are not free of the drug threat. All highways can serve as drug corridors and major seizures of drugs have occurred on almost all major segments of the highways in the District.
Methamphetamine has been identified as the primary drug threat to the District, primarily in the more rural areas. The incidence of clandestine lab seizures, and defendants charged with Methamphetamine violations, are up substantially over the last several years. The North Texas area is also a major transhipment, distribution and consumption center for cocaine and cocaine base. Cocaine has, historically, been the primary drug abused in North Texas. In addition, several types of heroin and large-scale amounts of marijuana have been seized in the District.
In addition to other investigative resources, the District has a new HIDTA (High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area) and a strong OCDETF (Organized Crime and Drug Enforcement Task Force). North Texas was designated a HIDTA in 1998 and was officially staffed in 1999. Its headquarters and state-of-the-art intelligence center are centrally located in the metroplex. All federal law enforcement agencies engaged in drug interdiction are members and all local police organizations are represented. HIDTA also houses an IRS-CID investigative group for asset tracking consistent with the National Money Laundering Strategy of 1999, with an eye to the aggressive seizure of the fruits and assets of drug traffickers.
As in most parts of the country, the violent crime rate has dropped dramatically in the cities and rural areas of the District over the past several years, however, the incidence of armed robberies and armed assaults remains high and above state and national averages.
The scope of armed violence in the District is diverse. Gang-perpetrated and drug-fueled violence is common, especially in urban areas. Texas Exile/Safe City programs in Dallas, Fort Worth, and Lubbock have been immensely successful in steering cases to the federal system where sentences are considerably longer and criminals seem to be getting the message that gun crime means hard time with no probation or parole.
However, one form of violent crime has recently bucked the national downward trend. The incidence of bank and Hobb's Act robberies in the District is increasing. Serial bank robberies have been identified as a growing violent crime problem, although explanations for this trend remain indeterminable.
Child exploitation in many forms is a growing threat. On-line child pornography and child sexual exploitation is the country's and this District's biggest and fastest growing crime problem involving children. This District will continue to aggressively prosecute purveyors of child pornography, including webmasters, and those who travel between states to meet juvenile victims seduced on-line through Internet pornography chatrooms. The North Texas Regional Computer Forensic Lab is forging ahead in playing a critical role in detecting, apprehending and convicting computer-perpetrated sexual exploitation offenses. Universally, law enforcement at all levels identify child pornography, with the attendant pedophilia, as a top law enforcement priority.
V APPELLATE LAW
The District falls within the jurisdiction of the United States Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. Defendants who have been found guilty may appeal a sentence or a guilty verdict, or both, on procedural or evidentiary issues, to the Fifth Circuit. The staff of Assistant United States Attorneys assigned to the District's Appellate Section is responsible for criminal appeals.