Two Florida homeland security vendor employees were sentenced today for conspiracy to commit wire fraud and honest services fraud by depriving their employers of money and the right of honest services, the Department of Justice announced today. (Read more)

Jimmy “Jimbo” Sullivan, the former chief of police in Mendenhall, Miss., pleaded guilty today to a felony civil rights violation, admitting that he used excessive force when he repeatedly stomped on the head of an arrestee. (Read more)

A former lobbyist pleaded guilty today to conspiring with others to commit honest services fraud. Todd A. Boulanger, 37, pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Richard W. Roberts in the District of Columbia. According to court documents, Boulanger worked as a lobbyist from 1999 through 2004 with Jack Abramoff and others. (Read more)

Five commercial fishermen in St. Mary’s County, Md., a fish wholesaler, its owner and an employee have been charged in Maryland and Washington, D.C., for their role in the illegal harvest, sale, and purchase of hundreds of thousands of pounds of striped bass from the Chesapeake Bay and Potomac River from 2003 through 2007. (Read more)

The Department today announced that it has reached a consent decree with the Policía de Puerto Rico (Puerto Rico Police Department or PRPD) that will, if approved by the federal district court, resolve a complaint the Department filed in March 2008 alleging that the PRPD engaged in unlawful employment discrimination based on gender and retaliation, in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. Title VII prohibits employment discrimination on the basis of race, color, sex, national origin and religion, and also prohibits retaliation against persons for filing charges of discrimination. (Read more)

A former high-level shipping executive was sentenced today to serve 48 months in jail and to pay a $20,000 criminal fine for his role in an antitrust conspiracy involving the transportation of goods to and from the continental United States and Puerto Rico by ocean vessel. This is the longest jail sentence ever imposed for a single antitrust charge. (Read more)

The Department today filed a lawsuit on behalf of Suzanne L. Halverson, an Army National Guard member, against Grand Forks County, N.D., alleging violations of the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act of 1994 (USERRA), which prohibits employers from discriminating against service-members because of their past, current or future military service obligations. (Read more)

The Department today filed suit against Ronald D. Peterson and Glen E. Johnson, the owner and rental manager, respectively, of 11 single family homes in Ypsilanti, Mich., alleging a pattern or practice of sexual harassment of female tenants. (Read more)

A Las Vegas federal grand jury has returned an indictment charging Alan Rodrigues, a former pit boss and casino owner from Henderson, Nev.; Weston Coolidge, a businessman from Las Vegas; and Joseph Prokop, a former National Football League punter from Upland, Calif., with a tax fraud scheme for their promotion of a fraudulent tax product through the now defunct National Audit Defense Network (NADN). (Read more)

A federal indictment was unsealed today in U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon charging Harold James Nicholson, 58, of Sheridan, Ore., and Nathaniel James Nicholson, 24, of Eugene, Ore., with two counts of Conspiracy, one count of Acting as Agents of a Foreign Government, and four counts of Money Laundering. (Read more)

The Department today announced a settlement resolving allegations that the Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County (Metropolitan Government) violated the Fair Housing Act (FHA) and the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA) by discriminating against Teen Challenge, a Christian substance abuse treatment program. (Read more)

The owner and operator of HME Solutions Inc., dba Lifecare Medical (Lifecare Medical), a licensed pharmaceutical wholesale company in Miami, pleaded guilty today to defrauding the Medicare program in connection with a $5.3 million HIV-infusion fraud scheme. (Read more)

The former vice president of reinsurance of American International Group Inc. (AIG), was sentenced today to four years in prison for his role in a fraudulent scheme to manipulate AIG’s financial statements. (Read more)

Three individuals were indicted today by a federal grand jury in the District of Massachusetts for conspiring to interfere with the civil rights of members of the Macedonia Church of God in Christ, a Springfield, Mass., church with a predominantly African-American congregation. (Read more)

A third individual pleaded guilty today to illegally accessing numerous confidential passport application files. Gerald R. Lueders, 65, of Woodbridge, Va., pleaded guilty before U.S. Magistrate Judge Alan Kay in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to a one-count criminal information charging him with unauthorized computer access. (Read more)

Hassan Saied Keshari and his corporation, Kesh Air International, pleaded guilty this morning in the Southern District of Florida to charges of conspiring to illegally export military and commercial aircraft parts to Iran.  (Read more)

Roy Lynn Oakley, 67, a resident of Harriman, Tenn., pleaded guilty today in U.S. District Court in Knoxville, to count one of an indictment charging him with unlawful disclosure of Restricted Data under the Atomic Energy Act, in violation of 42 U.S.C., Section 2274(b). (Read more)

Brian Carranza, 21, pleaded guilty today before U.S. District Court Judge Carol B. Amon in Brooklyn, N.Y., to conspiring to assault African-American residents in Staten Island, N.Y., in retaliation for President Barack Obama winning last year’s presidential election. (Read more)

Barrday Inc. and two related companies have agreed to pay the United States more than $1 million to resolve allegations that they violated the False Claims Act in connection with their role in the weaving of Zylon fabric used in the manufacture and sale of defective Zylon bullet-proof vests. Barrday, headquartered in Cambridge, Ontario, Canada, is a weaver of ballistic fabrics and designs and produces specialty industrial textiles. (Read more)

A former employee of the New York Power Authority (NYPA) was sentenced today to serve 37 months in jail and to pay a $5,000 criminal fine for his role in a kickback and bribery scheme. (Read more)

A Ghanian man was sentenced today in the District of Columbia for his role in smuggling East Africans into the United States. Mohammed Kamel Ibrahim, a/k/a Hakim, 27, a native of Ghana and naturalized citizen of Mexico, was sentenced to five years in prison by U.S. District Judge Ricardo M. Urbina after pleading guilty to one count of conspiracy and three counts of bringing aliens to the United States for profit. (Read more)

Phat Ngoc Tran, 35, pleaded guilty today in San Diego to conspiring to participate in a racketeering enterprise, the “Tran Organization,” in a scheme to cheat at least 12 casinos across the United States and Canada out of millions of dollars. Tran admitted that he and his co-conspirators unlawfully obtained up to $2.5 million during card cheats. (Read more)

A Chicago police officer pleaded guilty today to violating the federal civil rights of a man whom the officer struck repeatedly with a dangerous weapon while the man was handcuffed and shackled in a wheelchair. (Read more)

Three air cargo carriers, LAN Cargo S.A. (LAN Cargo), Aerolinhas Brasileiras S.A. (ABSA), and EL AL Israel Airlines Ltd. (EL AL), have each agreed to plead guilty and pay criminal fines totaling $124.7 million for their roles in a conspiracy to fix prices in the air cargo industry. (Read more)

Jorge De Castro Font, 45, a former senator in the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, pleaded guilty today to 20 counts of honest services wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit extortion. (Read more)

A federal jury in Jacksonville, Fla., found Paul Tillis, a former Florida Department of Corrections officer, guilty on Jan. 16, 2009, of a felony federal civil rights violation for an August 2005 assault on an inmate. (Read more)

On Jan. 19, 2009, President George W. Bush granted commutations of sentence to two individuals. (Read more)

Three individuals were arrested this morning in relation to a church arson on Nov. 5, 2008, in Springfield, Mass. (Read more)

The Department today announced a settlement that, pending court approval, will resolve allegations that those involved in the design and construction of the Crossings at Summerland Apartments, a 126-unit complex in Woodbridge, Va., discriminated on the basis of disability in the design and construction of the project. (Read more)

The Department today announced a settlement with the state of Tennessee regarding civil rights violations at the Tennessee State Veterans Homes (TSVHs) in Humboldt and Murfreesboro. The TSVHs are state-owned nursing homes, each serving approximately 140 residents, most of whom are veterans. (Read more)

The Department today announced a settlement with the South Carolina Department of Mental Health regarding civil rights violations at the C.M. Tucker Jr. Nursing Care Center in Columbia, a state-owned nursing home serving approximately 360 residents, 70 of whom are veterans. The agreement requires reforms to ensure that residents are provided adequate medical, mental health and nursing care, and are protected from harm. (Read more)

The Department has reached a settlement with the State of Georgia regarding the conditions at Georgia’s seven psychiatric hospitals. The Department opened its investigation of Georgia’s psychiatric hospitals in 2007 and issued findings regarding Georgia Regional Hospital at Atlanta on May 30, 2008. (Read more)

The Department announced a comprehensive agreement with King County, Wash., regarding the conditions of confinement at the King County Correctional Facility in Seattle. The agreement follows the Department’s investigation of the facility, which found substantial civil rights violations. (Read more)

Executives from LG Display Co. Ltd. and Chunghwa Picture Tubes Ltd. have agreed to plead guilty and serve jail time in the United States for participating in a global conspiracy to fix prices in the sale of Thin Film Transistor-Liquid Crystal Display (TFT-LCD) panels. (Read more)

A federal court has ordered CPA Steven W. McCann, who operates a firm called SWMc Services in the Houma, La., area, to stop claiming improper tax deductions on federal income tax returns he prepares for customers. McCann agreed to the civil injunction order. (Read more)

In the largest settlement yet in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s ongoing cement kiln enforcement initiative, the Department, on behalf of EPA, today lodged a consent decree with the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California resolving Clean Air Act claims against CEMEX California Cement LLC with respect to the company’s Victorville, Calif., Portland cement plant. (Read more)

SouthernCare Inc. and its shareholders have agreed to pay the United States a total of $24.7 million to settle allegations that the Birmingham, Ala.-based company submitted false claims to the government for patients treated at its hospice facilities. SouthernCare operates approximately 99 locations that provide hospice services in 15 states. (Read more)

The owners and operators of two Miami medical clinics, along with a phlebotomist at one of the clinics, have pleaded guilty to defrauding the Medicare program in connection with a $5.3 million HIV and cancer infusion fraud scheme. (Read more)

Zubair Ahmed, 29, and Khaleel Ahmed, 28, both residents of Chicago, pleaded guilty today in the Northern District of Ohio to conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists in connection with their efforts to travel abroad in order to murder or maim U.S. military forces in Iraq or Afghanistan. (Read more)

The Department is pleased with this important ruling by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review, which upholds the constitutionality of foreign intelligence surveillance conducted under the Protect America Act of 2007. (Read more)

American pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly and Company today agreed to plead guilty and pay $1.415 billion for promoting its drug Zyprexa for uses not approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). This resolution includes a criminal fine of $515 million, the largest ever in a health care case, and the largest criminal fine for an individual corporation ever imposed in a United States criminal prosecution of any kind. Eli Lilly will also pay up to $800 million in a civil settlement with the federal government and the states. (Read more)

Seven U.S. defendants charged for their activity in a global child pornography trafficking enterprise were convicted today in the Northern District of Florida following a six-day jury trial before Senior U.S. District Judge Lacey A. Collier. (Read more)

A Highland Falls, N.Y., woman was arrested today and charged in a criminal complaint for her role in a scheme to defraud the U.S. government by authorizing nearly $3 million in payments to a non-existent corporation for staff training that she knew never occurred at the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, N.Y. (Read more)

Jarrod Anthony Yates, a former Sequoyah County, Okla., corrections officer, was sentenced to 21 months in prison for violating the civil rights of an arrestee. (Read more)

Five people have been indicted by a federal grand jury in Miami relating to the individuals’ participation in a fraudulent business opportunity sales operation. A sixth individual was also charged in a criminal information. (Read more)

AT&T Inc. has agreed to pay more than $2 million as part of a civil settlement with the Department that resolves AT&T’s alleged violations of two court orders entered in connection with AT&T’s acquisition of Dobson Communications Corporation. (Read more)

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

KIK (Virginia) LLC pleaded guilty today in U.S. District Court in the Western District of Virginia to a misdemeanor violation of the Clean Water Act and agreed to pay a $75,000 criminal fine and $25,000 in community service payments for negligent discharges of bleach to the sanitary sewer system in Salem, Va. (Read more)

Peter Zavell, a medical doctor in Florence, S.C., pleaded guilty to one count of filing a false tax return for the year 2000. Zavell was scheduled to begin trial in Florence before Judge R. Bryan Harwell today. (Read more)

"Today’s report describes troubling conduct by a former supervisor in the Civil Rights Division prior to his departure from the Division nearly three years ago. The mission of the Justice Department is the evenhanded application of the Constitution and the laws enacted under it, and that mission has to start with the evenhanded application of the laws within our own Department. As today’s report makes clear, Mr. Schlozman deviated from that strict standard." (Read more)

Rite Aid Corporation (Rite Aid) and nine of its subsidiaries in eight states have agreed to pay $5 million in civil penalties to settle allegations of violations of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA). (Read more)

The Department today filed a lawsuit on behalf of James O. Alston, a member of the New Jersey Army National Guard, against Hawthorne Paint Co. Inc., alleging violations of the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act of 1994 (USERRA), which prohibits an employer from discriminating against an employee because of the employee’s past, current or future military obligations. (Read more)

The Department announced today the filing of a lawsuit against the city of Gary, Ind., alleging job discrimination against six individuals on the basis of their race, in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (as amended). (Read more)

Three manufacturers of sulfuric acid have agreed to spend at least $12 million on air pollution controls that are expected to eliminate more than 3,000 tons of harmful emissions annually from six production plants in Louisiana, Ohio, Oklahoma, Texas and the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming. Chemtrade Logistics, Chemtrade Refinery Services and Marsulex also will pay a civil penalty of $700,000 under the Clean Air Act settlement. (Read more)

Lloyds TSB Bank plc (Lloyds), a United Kingdom corporation headquartered in London, has agreed to forfeit $350 million to the United States and to the New York County District Attorney’s Office in connection with violations of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. (Read more)

The Department today filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court in New Mexico against Luna Community College, alleging discrimination against former employee Charlene Ortiz-Cordova in the form of sexual harassment by a supervisor that resulted in a hostile work environment. (Read more)

Roy M. Belfast Jr. was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Cecilia M. Altonaga today to 97 years in prison for crimes related to the torture of people in Liberia between April 1999 and July 2003. (Read more)

The Department has filed a forfeiture action against accounts worth nearly $3 million that are alleged to be the proceeds of a wide-ranging conspiracy to bribe public officials in Bangladesh and their family members in connection with various public work projects. (Read more)

A federal grand jury in Portland, Ore., returned a superseding indictment against Micaela Renee Dutson and her husband, Tony Dutson. The Dutsons were originally indicted May 8, 2008, on charges that they conspired to defraud the United States of more than $8 million and failed to file income taxes. (Read more)

A retired major in the U.S. Army pleaded guilty today to charges of bribery and making a false statement arising out of his activities as both a contracting specialist and a contracting officer at Camp Arifjan, Kuwait, from 2005 through 2007. (Read more)

The Explorer Pipeline Company has agreed to pay a $3.3 million civil penalty in order to resolve an alleged violation of the Clean Water Act stemming from a July 14, 2007, spill of over 6,500 barrels (approximately 275,000 gallons) of jet fuel from its interstate pipeline at a location near Huntsville, Texas. (Read more)

A former executive of an Orange County, Calif.-based valve company pleaded guilty today in connection with his role in a conspiracy to pay approximately $1 million in bribes to numerous foreign government officials. (Read more)

The owner and operator of two Miami medical clinics has pleaded guilty to defrauding the Medicare program in connection with a $5.3 million HIV infusion fraud scheme. (Read more)

The Department today filed a lawsuit under the Voting Rights Act against the New Black Panther Party for Self-Defense and three of its members alleging that the defendants intimidated voters and those aiding them during the Nov. 4, 2008, general election. (Read more)

Five defendants associated with the construction of the Liberty Village housing development in Lynchburg, Va., will pay a $300,000 penalty and fund more than $1 million in stream and wetlands restoration work for alleged violations of the Clean Water Act and permit restrictions during construction. (Read more)

The Department announced today the unsealing of an indictment charging three Staten Island, N.Y., men with conspiring to assault African-Americans in retaliation for President-Elect Barack Obama’s election victory. (Read more)

A federal court in Sacramento, Calif., issued a preliminary injunction ordering Capitol Waste Inc. and Iva and Kenneth Whitmire of Sacramento to comply with federal employment tax withholding requirements and to timely pay all present and future employment tax, unemployment tax and income tax liabilities. Capitol Waste, Inc. and the Whitmires agreed to the preliminary injunction order. (Read more)

A federal grand jury in Houston returned a superseding indictment today charging U.S. District Judge Samuel B. Kent, 59, with aggravated sexual abuse, abusive sexual contact and obstruction of justice. (Read more)

Dennis G. Sartain of Hilliard, Ohio, was sentenced to 120 months in prison by U.S. District Judge Michael H. Watson. The judge found the tax loss to be more than $1million and the fraud loss to be nearly $3.7 million. (Read more)

A multi-party settlement involving the federal government, the state of New Jersey and approximately 300 parties will ensure that clean-up efforts continue to be funded at the Combe Fill South Superfund Site Landfill (CFS) in Morris County, N.J. (Read more)

A former chief operating officer of Investment Properties of America, based in Richmond, Va., pleaded guilty today to conspiring to commit mail and wire fraud and to making a material false statement to federal investigators. (Read more)

Tyson Foods Inc. pleaded guilty today in U.S. District Court in Arkansas and agreed to pay the maximum fine for willfully violating worker safety regulations that led to a worker’s death in its River Valley Animal Foods (RVAF) plant in Texarkana, Ark. (Read more)

Leo Burnett Company, a Chicago advertising firm, has agreed to pay the U.S. $15.5 million to settle allegations that the company submitted false claims to the U.S. Army. The firm had a contract from 2000 to 2005 with the Army to provide advertising services for the military service’s recruiting mission. (Read more)

The Task Force’s expanded roster includes the Federal Housing Finance Agency, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Office of Thrift Supervision, the Federal Reserve, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). The new member agencies represent a continuing focus by the Task Force to crack down on mortgage fraud, particularly with regard to ongoing investigations into securitization fraud. (Read more)

John B. Sawyer, a former trooper with the South Carolina Highway Patrol, pleaded guilty today in federal court in Charleston, S.C., to using excessive force during an arrest. (Read more)

"Judge Bell’s long record of public service, especially his efforts to enact FISA and champion civil rights, exemplified his dedication, integrity, and fearless pursuit of justice. He was not only an outstanding Attorney General, but also a true gentleman. The Justice Department mourns his passing." (Read more)