Press Releases

The U.S. Department of Justice filed a civil denaturalization complaint yesterday against Victor Manuel Rocha in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida. Rocha is a native of Colombia who was convicted of serving as an unregistered agent for the Republic of Cuba.

A former NFL player who owned a marketing company and was the beneficial owner of eight durable medical equipment (DME) companies was sentenced yesterday to 196 months in prison for his role in a yearslong scheme to bilk Medicare and the Civilian Health and Medical Program of the Department of Veterans Affairs (CHAMPVA) out of nearly $200 million by selling patient information and sham doctors’ orders for orthotic braces that patients did not want or need.

The Department of Justice announced today that it filed denaturalization actions in various U.S. district courts against 12 individuals accused of serious offenses—including providing material support to a terrorist group, committing war crimes, and sexually abusing a minor.

Three affiliated skilled nursing facilities in Illinois have agreed to resolve allegations that they violated the False Claims Act by submitting or causing the submission of false claims to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services for medically unnecessary rehabilitation services. Under the agreement, Symphony Jackson Square LLC doing business as Symphony of Chicago West, Symphony Park South LLC doing business as Symphony of Morgan Park, and Symphony Midway LLC will pay the United States a total of $300,000. The settlement is based on their ability to pay.

The United States has filed a complaint and motion for preliminary injunction against the State of New Mexico, New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham, New Mexico Attorney General Raul Torrez, the City of Albuquerque, and Albuquerque Mayor Timothy Keller, alleging that the implementation of House Bill 9 (HB9), entitled the “Immigrant Safety Act,” and Albuquerque City Ordinance O-26-15, entitled the “Safer Community Places Ordinance (SCPO),” infringes on federal immigration enforcement authority.

The Justice Department’s National Fraud Enforcement Division continued to advance its mission to fight fraud and protect taxpayers.  Just on Monday, two men were sentenced to 151 months and 36 months in prison, respectively, for their roles in submitting over $522 million in fraudulent claims for medically unnecessary genetic tests in a scheme to defraud Medicare, Medicaid, and private health insurance companies.

A federal jury in Miami convicted four defendants for their roles in the July 7, 2021, assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse.

An illegal alien from Mexico pleaded guilty today for his role in an international human smuggling conspiracy that illegally brought aliens from Mexico and Central and South America across the northern border with Canada into the United States for profit. 

A Michigan man was sentenced today to 20 years in federal prison after having been convicted by a jury last year on two charges of attempting to provide material support to the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, commonly known as ISIS, a designated foreign terrorist organization, and for being a felon in possession of a destructive device, announced Assistant Attorney General for National Security John A. Eisenberg, United States Attorney Jerome F. Gorgon, Jr., and Special Agent in Charge Jennifer Runyan, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Detroit Division.

Danny Seibel, the former president and Chief Executive Officer of the now-defunct First National Bank of Lindsay (FNBL), pleaded guilty yesterday to one count of bank fraud.

A federal magistrate judge in Phoenix ordered Albert Bazaar held in custody following his arrest on charges relating to trafficking turtles. The court unsealed an indictment from San Francisco charging Bazaar, formerly of Angie, Louisiana, on conspiracy and Lacey Act violations. A status conference will be held on May 14 in Phoenix.

Today, a Bronx man was sentenced in New York for the June 2021 murder of a U.S. national in Bangladesh.