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Press Release

Southern District Of Florida U.S. Attorney’s Office Collects More Than $94 Million In Civil And Criminal Actions In Fiscal Year 2013

For Immediate Release
U.S. Attorney's Office, Southern District of Florida

Wifredo A. Ferrer, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, announced today that the Southern District of Florida collected $70,006,305.57 in criminal and civil actions in Fiscal Year (FY) 2013. Of this amount, $33,136,076.16 was collected in criminal actions and $36,870,229.41 was collected in civil actions. The office also collected $24,327,589 in criminal and civil forfeitures. Total, during FY 2013, our office collected $94,333,894.57 related to criminal and civil actions and forfeitures – more than double the appropriated budget of our office.

Additionally, the Southern District of Florida worked with other U.S. Attorney’s Offices and components of the Department of Justice to collect an additional $272,476,057.95 in cases pursued jointly with these offices. Of this amount, $5,523.71 was collected in criminal actions and $272,470,534.24 was collected in civil actions.

U.S. Attorney Wifredo A. Ferrer stated, “I am proud of the men and women of our office who work hard to secure restitution for crime victims and recover monies for the U.S. taxpayers. They work hard not only to protect the people of this great country of ours, but to ensure that criminals do not profit from their crime. Today’s numbers reflect that the U.S. Attorney's Office collects substantially more money than it spends and provides the taxpayers with an excellent return on their investment.”

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

Additionally, the U.S. Attorney’s office in Southern District of Florida, working with partner agencies and divisions, collected $24,327,589 in asset forfeiture actions in FY 2013. 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.

A copy of this press release may be found on the website of the United States Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida at http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/fls. Related court documents and information may be found on the website of the District Court for the Southern District of Florida at http://www.flsd.uscourts.gov or on http://pacer.flsd.uscourts.gov.

Updated March 12, 2015