Press Releases

A New Jersey man was sentenced to prison in connection with his involvement with online groups dedicated to creating and distributing videos depicting acts of extreme violence and sexual abuse against monkeys.

Sergey Bachkovsky, of Greene, Maine, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Portland, Maine, to trafficking whale and bird parts in violation of the Lacey Act.

The Department of Justice, together with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), announced today that a federal court has entered a stipulated order resolving a case alleging that China-based toy maker Apitor Technology Co., Ltd. (Apitor) violated the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act and its implementing regulations (COPPA) in connection with its programmable robotic toys.

The Department of Justice, together with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), announces the filing of a civil lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California against Iconic Hearts Holdings Inc. and its founder and CEO Hunter Rice for violations of the FTC Act, the Restore Online Shoppers’ Confidence Act (ROSCA), and the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act and its implementing regulations (COPPA) in connection with the social media messaging app known as Sendit.

The Justice Department announced today that it filed a lawsuit against Eddie Joe Hankins and the Housing Authority of the City of Bloomfield, Missouri, for sexually harassing a female housing applicant in violation of the Fair Housing Act. Hankins was the executive director of the Missouri Housing Authority from 2019 through 2022. 

Today, the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division launched an investigation into Des Moines Public Schools (DMPS) to determine whether it engages in employment practices that discriminate based on race, color, and national origin in violation of Title VII of the Civil Right Act of 1964, as amended.

Today, a federal jury in Memphis convicted Mervin Anderson, 40, of Memphis, Tennessee, of one count of possession of contraband in prison, including two homemade knives, or shanks.

The Civil Rights Division today filed a lawsuit against the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department due to their pattern or practice of infringing the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens seeking concealed carry weapons (CCW) permits. This lawsuit is the first affirmative lawsuit in support of gun owners filed by the U.S. Department of Justice. On March 27, 2025, the Division initiated the first-of-its-kind Second Amendment investigation due to numerous complaints of unreasonable delays in CCW permitting decisions by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. After analysis of

Georgia Tech Research Corporation (GTRC) has agreed to pay the United States $875,000 to resolve allegations that it violated the False Claims Act and federal common law by failing to meet cybersecurity requirements in connection with certain Air Force and Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) contracts. GTRC contracts with government agencies, including the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), for research performed at its affiliate, the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech).

Today, the United States filed a denaturalization action in the Middle District of Florida against Vladimir Volgaev, a native of Ukraine, who, according to the Department of Justice’s Complaint, concealed and misrepresented his involvement in a conspiracy to smuggle over a thousand firearms components out of the United States and ship them to foreign markets.

The Justice Department’s U.S. Trustee Program (USTP) obtained a judgment against a nationwide consumer bankruptcy law firm imposing more than $392,000 in penalties and a three-year suspension based on the firm’s false and misleading disclosures in more than 200 bankruptcy cases.

The Justice Department filed a civil injunction suit in federal court in New Orleans to bar Unnisha Paige, Rosetta Jones, Capriata Oatis, Keyante St. Cyr, Leah Smith, Laporscha Thompson, Deshira Horton, and India Toppins, who do business as Paige’s Income Tax Services (Paige Tax), from preparing tax returns for others and owning or operating a tax preparation business. The complaint also requests that the court require the defendants to disgorge the return preparation fees they obtained by preparing allegedly false or fraudulent tax returns.