Programs

Community Based Initiatives

Randy Katz, Special Counsel to the U.S. Attorney

Jennifer Andrade, Executive Assistant U.S. Attorney

One of the primary missions of the United States Attorney's Office (USAO) is to ensure that federal crimes affecting people in the Southern District of Florida (SDFL) are investigated and that the perpetrators are prosecuted, convicted, and punished. Common sense and experience have taught us, however, that we cannot arrest, prosecute and punish our way out of the problems that illegal drug use, violent crime, hate crimes, the unlawful possession and trafficking of firearms, and criminal gangs visit upon our community. Prosecutions alone will not eliminate the threat these crimes pose to our way of life. We know that every sector of our community has an important role to play in our efforts to combat these problems.

To this end, the Justice Department (DOJ) has implemented several special emphasis initiatives. These initiatives are aimed at empowering neighborhoods by strengthening partnerships, coordination, and collaboration between and among law enforcement agencies, government agencies, non-profit community groups, faith-based organizations, and the people who live and work in our local neighborhoods. The idea is simple: working together as a community, we have the power to make South Florida a better, safer place.

As do other U.S. Attorney’s Offices throughout the country, USAO-SDFL has a Law Enforcement Community Coordinator (LECC) and community outreach team. These invaluable staff members are responsible for developing strategies to enhance coordination and cooperation among law enforcement agencies; facilitating grassroot involvement and cooperation among local governments, law enforcement agencies, and residents through training, conferences, workshops, inter-agency meetings, and community meetings; and addressing violent crime in all our South Florida communities. Along with our partners, USAO-SDFL has implemented DOJ's Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN) program, through strategies to combat gun violence, anti-gang initiatives, and support for returning citizens when they rejoin our local communities following incarceration. We also help to implement outreach programs for Project Safe Childhood (PSC), an anti-bullying, cyber bullying and internet safety program in middle schools. In addition, we work to educate our youth, with a Peace Ambassadors Program, Making Smarter Choices field trip, and a Pre-K reading program.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office, through the efforts of the Law Enforcement Coordination/Community Outreach Section (LEC/COS), hosts annual Law Enforcement Coordination Meetings (LECMs) in support of the district’s four regions: (1) Miami-Dade and Monroe Counties; (2) Broward County; (3) Palm Beach County; and (4) St. Lucie, Martin, Highlands, Indian River and Okeechobee Counties. At these meetings, law enforcement representatives from approximately 100 federal, state, Tribal and local agencies work together to develop effective crime fighting and prevention strategies and to share information and intelligence. These meetings help forge inter-jurisdictional partnerships, which are essential to effectively combat crime and make our communities safer.

In addition, the LEC/COS conduct weekly free food distribution events for residents in South Florida communities throughout the district.

Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN)

Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN) is a program that brings together all levels of law enforcement and the communities they serve to reduce gun violence and other violent crime, and to make our neighborhoods safer for everyone. On May 26, 2021, the Department launched a violent crime reduction strategy strengthening PSN based on these core principles: fostering trust and legitimacy in our communities, supporting community-based organizations that help prevent violence from occurring in the first place, setting focused and strategic enforcement priorities, and measuring the results. DOJ provides grants and other resources to support local, state, and Tribal law enforcement agencies and community organizations in their effort to achieve safer communities. For more information about Project Safe Neighborhoods, please visit Justice.gov/PSN.

PSN Anti-Gang Initiative

PSN, particularly through the Anti-Gang Initiative, emphasizes and facilitates cooperative federal, state, and local prosecutions of firearm crimes, violent criminals, repeat violent offenders and gang related criminal activity.

PSN Reentry Initiative

Every year, thousands of individuals are released from incarceration in state and federal prisons and return to our communities. The challenge is to afford returning citizens the tools, services, and avenues needed for their successful reentry back into society.

The PSN initiative has been at the forefront of coordinating, facilitating and empowering reentry efforts throughout the Southern District of Florida. Within our district, the U.S. Attorney’s Office and our community and law enforcement partners:

A. Sponsor anti-gang violence and reentry focused summits, strategic planning and working groups.

B. Support law enforcement and non-profit partners’ reentry efforts such as: probation and parole patrol follow-ups; reentry coordinator counseling and service provider activities, help with obtaining driver's licenses, civil rights restoration, job training placement, and job placement and transportation assistance, reentry preparation fairs and community wide reentry fairs.

C. Encourage the development of county-wide Reentry Coordination Coalitions among our reentry partners including local/state and federal prison facilities, halfway-residential confinement facility, job placement agencies, faith-based institutions, elected officials and the media.

D. Assist coalitions in Broward and Miami-Dade Counties in publishing county-wide reentry assistance directories and in holding reentry and transition fairs and similar activities aimed at getting service providers in touch with reentering ex-offenders. We also conduct reentry simulations for groups, law enforcement, and professionals to understand the barriers many of our returning citizens face upon release.

E. Participate in the Southern District of Florida’s CARE Court. Approximately 25 percent of released Florida prisoners end up reoffending. The transition from incarceration to the community is full of challenges and unanticipated impediments. That's where a Court-Assisted Re-Entry (CARE) Initiative can help—by teaching former prisoners different ways of thinking so they don't fall back into bad habits. The program is designed to help moderate to high-risk returning citizens navigate barriers like employment, housing, education, substance abuse, medical and mental health care, reuniting with family, and social networks.

The Miami Herald recognized the impact of CARE Court on our community: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/education/article287830340.html

Project Safe Childhood (PSC)

Project Safe Childhood (PSC) is the Department of Justice initiative launched in 2006 to combat the proliferation of technology-facilitated crimes involving the sexual exploitation of children. Perpetrators use the same applications, games, and websites that children do to gain access to them. The threat of sexual predators soliciting children for physical sexual contact is well-known and serious. The danger of perpetrators who produce, distribute, and possess child pornography is equally dramatic and disturbing. There is often an international dimension to these crimes – for example, some offenders travel to victimize children outside of the United States or view live video streams (in addition to recorded still and video images) of children being abused in foreign countries.

DOJ is committed to the safety and well-being of every child and has placed a high priority on combating the sexual exploitation of minors. Through a network of federal, state, local and tribal law enforcement agencies and advocacy organizations, PSC attempts to protect children by investigating and prosecuting offenders involved in child sexual exploitation.

The department expanded PSC to encompass all federal crimes involving the sexual exploitation of a minor, including sex trafficking of a minor and crimes against children committed in Indian country. Failure to register as a sex offender offenses now also fall within the ambit of PSC.

Project Safe Childhood is implemented through partnerships with numerous stakeholders, including: U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys; the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS) of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) task forces; federal law enforcement partners, including the FBI, Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), the U.S. Marshals Service (USMS), the U.S. Postal Inspection Service (USPIS), and the U.S. Secret Service (USSS); advocacy organizations such as the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) and National Institute of Justice; and state, local, tribal and military law enforcement officials.

USAO-SDFL also supports PSC through Violence Reduction Partnership (VRP) outreach efforts, including a multi-media presentation for upper level elementary, middle school and high school students in order to empower them to refrain from committing acts of bullying and cyber-bullying and falling victim to bullies and internet predators.

More information about our PSC program can be found here PSC Page. 

Elder Fraud

Combatting elder abuse and financial fraud targeted at seniors is a key priority in the Southern District of Florida.  Through enforcement and education, we work with our law enforcement partners to combat elder abuse, neglect and financial fraud and scams that target our nation’s seniors. The public is encouraged to report victimization and suspected fraud schemes by calling the National Elder Fraud Hotline at 1-833-FRAUD 11 (1-833- 372-8311).

USAO-SDFL plans to hold an annual Elder Justice Fraud Prevention Forum, beginning in 2025, partnering with the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP), federal law enforcement, and state and local law enforcement.

More information about our Elder Justice Initiative can be found here Elder Justice Page.  

Hate and Religious Crimes

Our comprehensive and award-winning hate and religious crimes outreach program seeks to teach community members how to identify, report, and help prevent hate crimes and build trust between law enforcement and communities. We seek to share resources to combat hate and encourage discussion between representatives from law enforcement, community organizations, and members of the public. We help train local law enforcement, help form and participate in local hate crimes task forces, work to solidify and protect places of worship, and hold hate crimes forums with local communities.

More information about our Hate and Religious Crimes program can be found here Hate Crimes Page.

Organized Crimes Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF)

The South Florida USAO partners with federal, state, and local law enforcement as part of the Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF) to identify, disrupt, and dismantle the highest-level drug traffickers, money launderers, and other priority transnational criminal organizations that threaten the United States using a prosecutor-led, intelligence driven, multi-agency approach. Additional information about the OCDETF Program can be found here OCDETF Home Page.

COVID-19 Fraud

On May 17, 2021, the Attorney General established a national COVID-19 Fraud Enforcement Task Force. The Task Force bolsters efforts to investigate and prosecute the most culpable domestic and international criminal actors and assists agencies tasked with administering relief programs to prevent fraud by, among other methods, augmenting and incorporating existing coordination mechanisms, identifying resources and techniques to uncover fraudulent actors and their schemes, and sharing and harnessing information and insights gained from prior enforcement efforts.

On Sept. 15, 2022, the Attorney General selected the Southern District of Florida’s U.S. Attorney’s Office to head a national COVID-19 Fraud Strike Force Team. The Department of Justice established the Strike Force to enhance existing efforts to combat and prevent COVID-19 related financial fraud. The Strike Force combines law enforcement and prosecutorial resources and focuses on large-scale, multistate pandemic relief fraud perpetrated by criminal organizations and transnational actors, as well as those who committed multiple instances of pandemic relief fraud. The Strike Force uses prosecutor-led and data analyst-driven teams to identify and bring to justice those who stole pandemic relief funds.

Additional information regarding the Strike Force may be found here COVID-19 Strike Force.

Anyone with information about allegations of attempted fraud involving COVID-19 can report it by calling the Department of Justice’s National Center for Disaster Fraud (NCDF) Hotline at 866-720-5721 or via the NCDF Web Complaint Form at: https://www.justice.gov/disaster-fraud/ncdf-disaster-complaint-form.

Victim Services Program

The Victim Services Program is focused on assisting victims through the court system by providing timely information, logistical assistance (for victim-witnesses) and referrals to providers of medical care, counseling services, psychological treatment, financial and other victim-centered resources and services. The rights of victims are codified at Title 18, United States Code, Section 3771:

Rights of Crime Victims:

1. The right to be reasonably protected from the accused.
2. The right to reasonable, accurate, and timely notice of any public court proceeding, or any parole proceeding, involving the crime or of any release or escape of the accused.
3. The right not to be excluded from any such public court proceeding, unless the court, after receiving clear and convincing evidence, determines that testimony by the victim would be materially altered if the victim heard other testimony at that proceeding.
4. The right to be reasonably heard at any public proceeding in the district court involving release, plea, sentencing, or any parole proceeding.
5. The reasonable right to confer with the attorney for the Government in the case.
6. The right to full and timely restitution as provided in law.
7. The right to proceedings free from unreasonable delay.
8. The right to be treated with fairness and with respect for the victim's dignity and privacy.
9. The right to be informed in a timely manner of any plea bargain or deferred prosecution agreement.
10. The right to be informed of the rights under this section and the services described in section 503(c) of the Victims' Rights and Restitution Act of 1990 (42 U.S.C. 10607(c)) and provided contact information for the Office of the Victims' Rights Ombudsman of the Department of Justice.

The Office is committed to protecting the rights of crime victims.  If you are a victim of a crime being prosecuted by our Office, our Victim and Witness Unit can:

• Give referrals to other agencies (public and private) that provide important social services,  including counseling, treatment, and other support.
• A separate waiting area away from defendant and defense witnesses.
• Courtroom support.
• Information and assistance with travel and lodging for mandatory court appearances.
• Return of property held as evidence.
• Employer or creditor intercession/notification.
• Payment of forensic rape exams, testing and services for crime victims in sexual assault cases.

Case Updates

In general, the U.S. Government attempts to identify each victim in a given case, and to provide those victims with the information relevant to the case through DOJ’s Victim Notification System (VNS). This free, computer-based and toll-free system provides two important services to victims: information and notification. In cases where, due to the number of victims involved, or for other reasons, such notification is impracticable, the Government may use other methods to communicate with victims, including posting relevant information online. 

Other Programs

The USAO-SDFL also maintains and advances programs that focus on areas such as computer crimes, election crimes, human trafficking, immigration, and violent crime in Indian Country, among others.

For more information about the U.S. Attorney’s Office please contact:

Main Number: (305) 961-9001

United States Attorney's Office Address:

99 NE 4th Street

Miami, FL  33132

Citizen Complaint Hotline: (305) 961-9173

Citizen Complaint Email Address: USAFLS-Citizencomplaints@usdoj.gov