Nevada U. S. Attorney’s Office Collects $18 Million In 2013

      LAS VEGAS, Nev. – U.S. Attorney Daniel G. Bogden announced today that the Nevada U.S. Attorney’s Office collected $18 million in Fiscal Year (FY) 2013 related to criminal, civil and asset forfeiture actions.  Of this amount, $10.5 million was collected in criminal actions, $1.6 million was collected in civil actions, and $5.9 million was collected in criminal and civil forfeitures.
           
Additionally, the District of Nevada worked with other U.S. Attorney’s Offices and components of the Department of Justice to collect an additional $1.9 million in cases pursued jointly with these offices.  This additional shared amount was collected in civil actions.   

“The collection of monetary penalties in federal litigation is a critical aspect of our work that frequently gets overlooked,” said U.S. Attorney Bogden.  “These collections are used to help crime victims and for a variety of other law enforcement purposes. Our FY 2013 collections exceeded our total appropriated budget for our office by almost three times.”   

Attorney General Eric Holder announced today that nationally the Justice Department collected approximately $8.1 billion in civil and criminal actions in the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2013. The more than $8 billion in collections in FY 2013 represents nearly three times the appropriated $2.76 billion budget for the 94 U.S. Attorney’s offices and the main litigating divisions in that same period.

            “The Department’s enforcement actions help to not only ensure justice is served, but also deliver a valuable return to the taxpayer,” said Attorney General Holder. “It is critical that Congress provide the resources necessary to match the Department’s mounting caseload. As these figures show, supporting our federal prosecutors is a sound investment.”

An example of a recent case in which the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Nevada collected a significant amount of money is United States v. Richard Young. Young, of Lewistown, Montana, was convicted following a jury trial in March 2011 of various fraud offenses including conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, money laundering, and securities fraud.  Young deceived more than 1,400 persons into investing more than $16 million in a fraudulent securities trading business which was nothing more than an elaborate Ponzi scheme.  Young was sentenced in December 2011 to 25 years in prison and ordered to pay $13.3 million to the victims.  Young’s sentence also included a forfeiture order by which multiple items of real and personal property were forfeited to the United States, including tractor-trailers, several homes and business properties in Lewistown, bank accounts holding over $500,000, and multiple cars, tools, furnishings, and business equipment.  The forfeited properties were liquidated and yielded approximately $1.12 million.  Pending approval from the Department of Justice Asset Forfeiture and Money Laundering Section, those monies will be used to pay the victims of Mr. Young’s crimes in partial satisfaction of the restitution order.

The U.S. Attorneys’ Offices, along with the department’s litigating divisions, are responsible for enforcing and collecting civil and criminal debts owed to the U.S. and criminal debts owed to federal crime victims.  The law requires defendants to pay restitution to victims of certain federal crimes who have suffered a physical injury or financial loss.  While restitution is paid to the victim, criminal fines and felony assessments are paid to the department’s Crime Victims’ Fund, which distributes the funds to state victim compensation and victim assistance programs. Forfeited assets are deposited into the Department of Justice Assets Forfeiture Fund and are used to restore funds to crime victims and for a variety of law enforcement purposes.

The largest civil collections were from affirmative civil enforcement cases, in which the United States recovered government money lost to fraud or other misconduct or collected fines imposed on individuals and/or corporations for violations of federal health, safety, civil rights or environmental laws.  In addition, civil debts were collected on behalf of several federal agencies, including the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Health and Human Services, Internal Revenue Service, Small Business Administration and Department of Education.