Keith Wyatt
Chief
Daniel Hu
Deputy Chief
Assistant U.S. Attorneys throughout the district represent the interests of the United States in matters for which the Department of Justice has jurisdiction. Attorneys assigned civil litigation responsibilities represent the United States in civil suits in state and federal courts throughout the Southern District of Texas. Attorneys are assigned civil cases in the earliest stage of investigation and litigation.
The assigned attorney remains responsible for a civil case from the trial court procedures to appellate review at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and the Federal Circuit in Washington, D.C. Representation can be for the United States as plaintiff or a creditor in bankruptcy proceedings, and for the United States as a defendant.
The district’s strategies within this mission are to:
- Protect the U.S. Treasury against unwarranted monetary claims, assure appropriate payments for meritorious claims, maximize monetary recovery for injury and damages to federal property, and assert the federal government’s interest in defensive litigation.
- Recover money owed to the federal government as the result of fraud, loan and contract defaults, and unsatisfied judgments and combat health care fraud through the vigorous implementation of civil remedies provided by the False Claims Act.
- Ensure the government’s interests are fully protected in bankruptcy proceedings.
- Defend against challenges to federal programs, policy initiatives and statutes, and enforce remedies for violations of statutory-based federal program requirements.
- Defensive Litigation
- Affirmative Litigation
Defensive Litigation Section
Representing the United States as a defendant typically involves defending regulations, procedures and actions of Federal agencies in administrative decisions and internal personnel actions; representing agencies and their employees in suits which challenge their work or claim negligence; and representing the government in maritime disputes. We handle all civil immigration and naturalization matters in the District Courts and certain matters in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. The defense side of the civil docket involves a wide range of cases involving issues of medical malpractice, vehicle torts, seaman personal injury, contract disputes, employment discrimination and Bivens ("constitutional torts") actions.
"Representative cases include defending the government from claims brought by federal prisoners unhappy with conditions of confinement, defending the Postal Service for premises liability claims, representing the Customs Service or Border Patrol in employment matters, defending the Houston VA Hospital in medical malpractice cases, automobile accident claims, INS habeas corpus actions, Social Security disability appeals and defending claims to mineral interests on government land."
Affirmative Litigation Section
The district collects damages and civil monetary penalties through enforcement of federal fraud statutes such as the False Claims Act, and works with the Criminal Division to keep criminal defendants from dissipating the funds obtained through fraud by utilizing the Fraud Injunction Act.
In a Medicare fraud scheme involving electric wheelchairs, the Fraud Injunction Act was used to freeze over seven million dollars held in the bank accounts of eight different criminal defendants. This money is returned to the Medicare Trust Fund when the defendants plead or are convicted. The section recovered $900,000.00 from a McAllen internist in settlement of allegations of Medicare fraud, and intervened in a qui tam against a hospital that we allege paid physicians for referrals, in violation of the Stark Law.
In addition to health care fraud, we handle drug diversion cases, HUD equity skimming cases, and non-health care related False Claims Act cases. We recovered $1,870,000.00 from defendants engaged in a scheme to circumvent Customs duties by fraudulently representing that goods imported into California from Hong Kong were en route to Mexico by way of Laredo, Texas, when in fact they were put on a truck in Laredo and shipped back to California. We have removed from the stream of commerce-adulterated honey, tablets containing ephedra alkaloids, which can raise blood pressure to dangerously high levels in certain individuals, and garments containing counterfeit trademarks. We have recovered money from individuals who defrauded housing assistance programs. We have enforced an FAA subpoena against a company that took its customers on dangerous flying maneuvers.
In summary, we bring a wide variety of civil actions, some of which protect the public fisc, and others which protect the public's health and welfare.