Oregon U.S. Attorney's Office Collects More Than $32 Million For U.S. Taxpayers in Fiscal Year 2013

PORTLAND, Ore. - U.S. Attorney Amanda Marshall announced today that the District of Oregon collected more than $32 million for U.S. taxpayers during Fiscal Year 2013.  This total included:

• $26,579,155.45 collected in criminal actions
• $371,698.67 collected in civil actions
• over $5,700,000 collected in forfeiture actions arising out of drug trafficking and fraud prosecutions

Additionally, Oregon worked with other U.S. Attorney’s Offices and components of the Department of Justice to collect an additional $794,100 in cases pursued jointly with these offices.  Of this amount, $26,745 was collected in criminal actions and $767,355 was collected in civil actions.

Attorney General Eric Holder announced on Thursday that the Justice Department collected approximately $8 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 American people,” 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.”

“The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Oregon is critical in recovering funds for victims of crime,” said U.S. Attorney Amanda Marshall.  “My office places a high priority on recovering the proceeds of crime and returning those funds to the victims.”  This past year, the District of Oregon recovered $23 million in a single case in cooperation with the Bankruptcy court, arising out of the criminal fraud case against four former owners of Summit Accommodators, operating out of Bend, Oregon.  The entire amount was returned to the victims who were clients of the Summit group.

 Other cases involving significant collections during the past fiscal year include:

• U.S. v. David Gilbert, who pled guilty to conspiracy to commit bank fraud and was ordered to pay $2,177,603.31 restitution.  The Financial Litigation Unit issued numerous writs of execution on various bank accounts and has collected over $680,000 to date for victims.


• As part of her sentence, Judith Eubank was ordered to pay $333,903.25 in restitution to Social Security and Oregon Department of Human Services after her guilty plea to the crime of theft of government funds.  Her plea agreement included a payment of $100,000 toward restitution at sentencing.


• In the case of U.S. v. Geoffrey Montani , the defendant pled guilty to wire fraud and was ordered to pay $1,492,545.74 restitution.  As part of the plea agreement, defendant paid $50,000 towards restitution prior to sentencing and another $76,458.97 was collected through garnishment by the Financial Litigation Unit.

In addition to the highlighted cases above, which involved large lump sum payments, most of the funds collected in the District of Oregon were obtained through the focused process of reviewing every defendant’s case for assets.  The successful collection comes after pursuing those assets through filing of liens, issuing writs of garnishment on bank accounts, retirement accounts, pensions and wages, and issuing writs of execution on real and personal property.  Also, working with the Asset Forfeiture Unit, $31,867 was recovered from forfeited funds and applied to restitution for victims.

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.

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.

Additionally, the U.S. Attorney’s office in Oregon working with partner agencies and divisions,collected $5,770,000 in asset forfeiture actions in FY 2013. Forfeited assets deposited into the Department of Justice Assets Forfeiture Fund are used to restore funds to crime victims and for a variety of law enforcement purposes.