Oregon U.S. Attorney's Office Collects Nearly $7 Million in Civil and Criminal Actions for U.S. Taxpayers in Fiscal Year 2018

PORTLAND—U.S. Attorney Billy J. Williams announced today that the District of Oregon collected $6,996,187 in criminal and civil actions in Fiscal Year 2018. Of this amount, $5,085,876 was collected in criminal actions and $1,910,310 in civil actions.

As a whole, the Justice Department collected nearly $15 billion in civil and criminal actions in the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2018. The FY 2018 collections are nearly seven times the appropriated $2.13 billion budget for the 94 U.S. Attorneys’ offices.

An example of the district’s collection efforts was U.S. v. Jumroon et al. On December 18, 2018, Paul Jumroon was sentenced to 37 months in prison for forced labor, visa fraud and filing false tax returns. Between 2011 and 2014, defendant Paul Jumroon and co-defendant Tanya Jumroon fraudulently obtained E-2 "investor" visas to bring Thai nationals into the United States to provide cheap labor at their restaurants in Lake Oswego, Oregon, and in Ridgefield, Washington. At sentencing, Paul Jumroon was ordered to pay more than $131,000 in restitution to his victims and more than $120,000 to the IRS. As part of his plea agreement, Jumroon also agreed to forfeit more than $80,000 in seized currency and gold bars and to a garnishment of more than $170,000 in retirement savings.

A second example is U.S. v. Hankins. In 2001, Anne Hankins pleaded guilty to bank fraud after submitting a false loan application for $350,000 to U.S. Bank Special Assets Group. Hankins was sentenced to 30 days in jail and, under the Mandatory Victims Restitution Act, ordered to pay $350,000 in restitution to U.S. Bank. Between 2002 and 2013, Hankins made sporadic payments ranging from $50 to $400 monthly. By July 2013, Hankins had paid $13,044. In September 2013, Hankins and Horton & Associates LLC, a firm U.S. Bank had previously assigned its restitution interest to, agreed to settle the outstanding restitution for a mere $5,000. In April 2015, the Treasury Offset Program garnished $21,765 from Hankins, who had stopped making restitution payments after her purported agreement with Horton & Associates LLC. Displeased with the garnishment, Hankins filed a motion in the district court for full satisfaction of the restitution judgment. The district court denied the motion and Hankins appealed.

The government successfully argued on appeal before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals that restitution cannot be settled for less than the full amount ordered and that if a victim declines

receipt of restitution, the balance should be paid to the national Crime Victims Fund. The ruling resulted in a full restitution judgment of $331,995 from Hankins going directly to the Crime Victims Fund.

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.

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.