Category: The Department of Justice

Two leaders of the national gang the Gangster Disciples were sentenced today for a racketeering conspiracy involving murder.

Shauntay Craig, aka Shake, 42, of Birmingham, Alabama, was sentenced to 40 years in prison. Craig pleaded guilty in August 2019 to racketeering conspiracy involving murder and drug trafficking.

Donald Glass, aka Smurf, 30, of Decatur, Georgia, was sentenced to life plus 120 months in prison. Glass was convicted by a federal jury in May 2019 of racketeering conspiracy involving murder, discharging a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence, causing death through the use of a firearm for

A Washington man pleaded guilty today to perpetrating a scheme to fraudulently obtain COVID-19 relief guaranteed by the Small Business Administration (SBA) through the Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) and the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act.

Nicholas L. McQuaid, Acting Assistant Attorney General of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division; Brian T. Moran, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Washington; J. Russell George, Inspector General of the U.S. Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA); Gail S. Ennis, Inspector General of the Social Security Administration (SSA); Hannibal “Mike” Ware, Inspector General

The Department of Justice, together with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), today announced three settlements resolving alleged violations of the Better Online Ticket Sales (BOTS) Act.  These are the first enforcement actions that the department and the FTC have brought under the BOTS Act. 

Enacted in 2016, the BOTS Act aims to prevent ticket brokers from buying large numbers of event tickets and reselling them to interested customers at inflated prices.  To achieve that goal, the BOTS Act prohibits a person from circumventing access controls or measures used by online ticket sellers (such as Ticketmaster) to enforce ticket-purchasing limits.  It

A civilian employee working for the U.S. Marine Corps Community Association pleaded guilty today to assaulting his spouse while working in Iwakuni, Japan.

Nicholas L. McQuaid, Acting Assistant Attorney General of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division; Matthew Schneider, U.S Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan;  and Timothy Mahew, Special Agent in Charge of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) Far East Field Office made the announcement. 

Jason Beltran, 35, a former U.S. Marine most recently residing in Flushing, Michigan, pleaded guilty to a single count of assault of a spouse resulting in substantial bodily injury. Beltran entered his plea

A Texas man was convicted by a federal jury today for operating a website dedicated to publishing writings that detailed the sexual abuse of children.

Nicholas L. McQuaid, Acting Assistant Attorney General of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division; Gregg Sofer, U.S. Attorney of the Western District of Texas; and Luis M. Quesada, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI’s El Paso Field Office made the announcement.

After a three-day trial, Thomas Alan Arthur, 64, of Terlingua, was convicted of three counts of trafficking in obscene visual representations of the sexual abuse of a child, five counts of trafficking in obscene

On Friday, the Environment and Natural Resources Division publicly distributed a memorandum summarizing important principles and priorities for environmental enforcement. The memorandum, issued Jan. 14 by outgoing Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Bossert Clark, emphasizes that robust enforcement of our nation’s environmental laws remains one of the division’s highest priorities. It emphasizes that, when engaged in criminal and civil enforcement, it is important that the division continue to enhance the fair and impartial application of the law.

The memorandum collects and reflects recent policies and guidance within the division, from around the Department of Justice, and in orders from the President

A former senior New York construction official was sentenced to 38 months  in prison today for tax evasion, announced Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Richard E. Zuckerman of the Justice Department’s Tax Division.

According to court documents, for more than eight years, Anthony Guzzone attempted to evade his federal income taxes.  Guzzone, the former Director of Global Construction at Bloomberg LP in New York, failed to report to the IRS over $1.45 million in bribes he received from subcontractors performing work at Bloomberg construction jobs.  Guzzone, together with other Bloomberg managers and officials at Turner Construction, solicited a total of

A developer and his companies have agreed to effectuate $900,000 in compensatory mitigation, preserve undisturbed riparian areas, conduct erosion-control work on streams, and be subject to a prohibitory injunction to resolve alleged violations of the Clean Water Act (CWA) on property north of Houston, Texas, the Justice Department announced today.

“Today’s substantial settlement involving the unpermitted filling of streams and wetlands, if approved by the court, will draw to a close this long-running Clean Water Act litigation,” said Eric Grant, Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division.  “Today’s agreement serves the public interest in

A Connecticut man was charged yesterday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia with assaulting an officer during the breach of the U.S. Capitol grounds on Jan. 6, 2021. He will be presented in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York today, before appearing in Washington D.C. 

Patrick Edward McCaughey III was charged with assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers or employees; civil disorder; entering restricted building or grounds; and violent entry or disorderly conduct.

“The vicious attack on Officer Hodges was abhorrent and quintessentially un-American,” said Acting U.S. Attorney Michael R. Sherwin. “It

The Department of Justice, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality (LDEQ) announced a settlement with Dow Chemical Company and two subsidiaries, Performance Materials NA Inc. and Union Carbide Corporation, that will eliminate thousands of tons of air pollution from four of Dow’s petrochemical manufacturing facilities in Texas and Louisiana.

The settlement resolves allegations that Dow and its subsidiaries violated the Clean Air Act by failing to properly operate and monitor industrial flares at their petrochemical facilities, which resulted in excess emissions of harmful air pollution. 

The complaint, filed Tuesday along with the settlement,