U.S. Attorney’s Office in Kansas Collects $6.5 Million In Civil and Criminal Actions in Fiscal Year 2018

TOPEKA, KAN. – The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Kansas collected $6.5 million in criminal and civil actions in FY 2018, U.S. Attorney Stephen McAllister said today. Of this amount, $3.9 million was collected in criminal actions and $2.6 million was collected in civil actions.

“Our attorneys and investigators are very successful in recovering money owed to victims and to the government,” McAllister said. “They are one of the reasons that crime really doesn’t pay.”

As a whole, the Justice Department collected nearly $15 billion in civil and criminal actions in the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2018. The $14,839,821,650 in collections in FY 2018 represents nearly seven times the appropriated $2.13 billion ($2,136,750,000) budget for the 94 U.S. Attorneys’ offices.

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 collected to federal and state victim compensation and victim assistance programs.

Recent examples in the District of Kansas include recovering more than $140,000 from a CPA who made false statements on tax returns, more than $77,000 from a former Kansas bank teller who embezzled the money, more than $185,000 from the owner of a diagnostic testing facility who was convicted of health care fraud and more than $200,000 from a man who was convicted of failing to report income from illegal bookmaking.

“The men and women of the U.S. Attorneys’ offices across the country work diligently, day in and day out, to see that the citizens of our nation receive justice. The money that we are able to recover for victims and this country as a whole is a direct result of their hard work,” Director James A. Crowell, IV, Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys.

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, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Internal Revenue Service, the Small Business Administration and the Department of Education.