U.S. Attorney's Office Collects Over $2.1 Million in Civil and Criminal Actions for U.S. Taxpayers in Fiscal Year 2018

United States Attorney Ron Parsons announced that the District of South Dakota collected $2,163,413.25 in Fiscal Year (FY) 2018 from civil and criminal actions.  Of this amount, $1,457,048.53 was collected in criminal actions, and $706,364.72 was collected 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 $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.

Also, working with partner agencies and divisions, the District collected $84,598 in asset forfeiture actions in FY 2018. Forfeited assets deposited into the Department of Justice Assets Forfeiture Fund are used to restore funds to crime victims and for a variety of law enforcement purposes.

“The recovery of these funds is a critical component of our mission,” said U.S. Attorney Parsons.  “Thanks to the excellent work of our Civil Division and Financial Litigation Unit under the leadership of our Civil Chief Diana Ryan, these recovered dollars will play a vital role in helping crime victims and preventing losses to the American taxpayer.”

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.