Press Releases

Three Texas tax return preparers – a tax return preparation business owner and two of his employees – were sentenced today to 50 months, 26 months, and 18 months in prison for their roles in conspiring to file false tax returns on behalf of clients. Two other tax return preparers who admitted to filing false tax returns for clients as part of the same scheme still await sentencing.

A San Antonio-based member of a Nihilistic Violent Extremist (NVE) group related to the 764 network was sentenced today to 40 years in prison, lifetime supervised release, and to pay $10,000 in restitution for racketeering activity and multiple acts relating to the sexual exploitation of children.

An illegal alien from Guatemala and a Guatemalan national have pleaded guilty to human smuggling charges related to the crash of a tractor-trailer packed with at least 160 illegal aliens which resulted in the deaths of more than 50 people, including unaccompanied children, and injured over 100 more.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit yesterday denied a petition for review in a legal challenge to the Maritime Administration’s issuance of a deepwater port license to Delfin LNG. In denying the petition, the court held that three environmental groups failed to establish standing. The court did not rule on the merits of the case because the petitioners did not show any injury that might be traced to the challenged project. 

A Maryland man was sentenced today in connection with charges stemming from his attempt to join and fight for ISIS.

Today, the Justice Department announced that the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) voluntarily resolved the Department’s compliance review under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VI). The Department opened a review of MDH’s Capacity Strengthening Initiative grant program because it used race, color, and national origin to determine which applicants received funding. Because MDH has now ended the grant program, the Department is closing its review.

A California man was sentenced today to 78 months in prison and three years of supervised release for perpetrating an elaborate bank fraud scheme that took in approximately $39 million from multiple financial institutions over the course of nearly 10 years.

Today, the United States and the Municipality of Anchorage announced the resolution of Municipality of Anchorage v. United States, No. 14-166C (U.S. Court of Federal Claims), which has been pending since 2014.  Under the settlement agreement, the United States will make a payment of $180 million to the Municipality in exchange for concluding this decade-long litigation against the United States for its alleged fault in the uncompleted Port of Alaska expansion project.

Kansas City, Missouri, resident Vinol Wilson, 52, pleaded guilty today in federal court to illegally possessing a firearm after a felony conviction and to multiple federal dogfighting offenses. Those offenses include conspiring to violate the federal Animal Welfare Act’s animal fighting law, keeping a dog for use in dog fighting, and buying and receiving a dog to use in a dogfighting venture.

The Department of Justice’s Energy and Natural Resources Division filed a stipulation today dismissing lawsuits by the State of Alaska and the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority

The founder and former Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Ruthia He of Done Global Inc., a California-based digital mental health company, was sentenced today to six years in prison and a $1 million fine for orchestrating a scheme that used her company’s technology platform, compensation structure, and clinical protocols to unlawfully distribute over 37 million pills of Adderall, defraud insurers of over $12 million, and obstruct the federal investigation that followed.

The Justice Department’s Antitrust Division filed a proposed settlement today to resolve the United States’ claims against Willow Bridge Property Company LLC, as part of its ongoing enforcement action in the Middle District of North Carolina against algorithmic coordination, the use of competitors’ competitively sensitive data, and other anticompetitive practices in rental markets across the country. Today’s proposed settlement builds on the Justice Department’s success in obtaining proposed settlements in the same enforcement action against RealPage Inc. and three other large landlords