Western Washington U.S. Attorney’s Office Collects more than $21 Million for U.S. Taxpayers and Crime Victims in Fiscal Year 2015

Seattle - U.S. Attorney Annette L. Hayes announced today that the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Washington collected more than $21 million between October 1, 2014 and September 30, 2015.  The office collected $12,195,918 in criminal and civil actions.  Criminal cases accounted for $4,108,596 of the collections and $8,087,322 was collected in civil actions.  In addition the office collected $8.9 million in asset forfeitures.  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 Western District of Washington also worked with other U.S. Attorney’s Offices and components of the Department of Justice to collect an additional $8,571,092 in cases pursued jointly with these offices.  Of this amount, $10,625 was collected in criminal actions and $8,560,467 was collected in civil actions.

These collections are part of the $23 billion that Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch announced yesterday in civil and criminal actions in the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2015. The more than $23 billion in collections in FY 2015 represents more than seven and a half times the approximately $2.93 billion of the Justice Department's combined appropriations for the 94 U.S. Attorney's offices and the main litigating divisions in that same period.

“Every day this office goes to work to protect the public and that includes safeguarding taxpayer resources,” said U.S. Attorney Annette L. Hayes.  “During this past fiscal year, this has meant returning a total of $21 million to victims of crime and other taxpayer funded programs. This office will continue to work hard to ensure criminals do not profit from their crimes and those who defraud the government do not get to keep their ill-gotten gains.” 

The more than $21 million collected in the Western District of Washington are made up of a wide variety of civil and criminal actions brought on behalf of the United States.  The largest civil collection in the Western District of Washington was $6.4 million from cardiac monitoring company Bio-Telemetry Inc.  The company paid $6.4 million to resolve allegations that its subsidiary, CardioNet, improperly billed the Medicare Program for Mobile Cardiac Outpatient Telemetry (MCOT) services when those services were not reasonable or medically necessary. More on the case here. 

On the criminal side, the U.S. Attorney’s Office collected more than $231,000 from Gino Turrella, who committed identity theft while making threats against Boeing and other companies.  Elsa Kwong, convicted of widespread food stamp fraud paid $147,967 towards her $1.5 million restitution obligation.  Jennifer Kolar, convicted in connection with the 2001 arson at the University of Washington Center for Urban Horticulture paid $77,000 toward restitution for the $7 million in damage caused by the fire.  And Colton Harris Moore, known in the media as the ‘Barefoot Bandit’ paid $90,000 towards his restitution obligation of more than $1.1 million.

            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.