The Associate Director of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Consolidated Mail Outpatient Pharmacy in Hines, Ill., agreed to plead guilty to being part of a conspiracy to defraud the VA and the Small Business Administration (SBA). His wife and the temporary staffing company she founded agreed to plead guilty to participating in the same conspiracy.

Edward B. Bartoli, a Clearwater, Fla., resident and former attorney, was sentenced to 10 years in prison by U.S. District Judge Charles R. Norgle of Chicago. Bartoli is the last of six defendants to be sentenced after they were convicted of various tax crimes in May 2008. Prior to his conviction, Bartoli was a founder of Aegis and its legal director.

A Newton, Conn., resident who was involved in operating three businesses in Brooklyn, N.Y., pleaded guilty to conspiring to defraud the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Mariusz Debowksi pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Manhattan to conspiracy to aid another in filing false tax returns.

Sikorsky Aircraft Company, a division of United Technologies Corporation, has agreed to pay the United States $2,941,000 to resolve fraud allegations in connection with its contract for the manufacture of Black Hawk helicopters for the Army. Sikorsky, located in Stratford, Conn., manufactures the Black Hawk or variations of the Black Hawk for the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines, as well as for other nations.

A Jackson, Miss., computer systems administrator was found guilty late Thursday of receiving and possessing images of child pornography on his home computer. Following a four-day jury trial in Natchez, Miss., Joseph McNealy was found guilty of three counts of receiving child pornography through the Internet and one count of possessing child pornography.

Two former National Century Financial Enterprises (NCFE) executives were sentenced today for their roles in a scheme to deceive investors about the financial health of NCFE. NCFE, formerly based in Dublin, Ohio, was one of the largest healthcare finance companies in the United States until it filed for bankruptcy in November 2002.

Bruce Lapierre, of Pascoag, R.I., and Albert Martin and Lorraine Martin, both of Woonsocket, R.I., were convicted of conspiracy to defraud the United States and tax evasion following 2 hours of deliberations and an 8-day trial before Chief Judge Mary M. Lisi in Providence, R.I.

A federal grand jury in San Francisco returned an indictment today charging an executive at Hitachi Displays Ltd. with participating in a global conspiracy to fix the prices of Thin Film Transistor-Liquid Crystal Display (TFT-LCD) panels sold to Dell Inc.

Rudy Frabizio, 46, of Acton, Mass., was convicted today of possession of child pornography. Frabizio was found guilty after a seven-day jury trial in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts in Boston. Frabizio may face up to five years in prison. His sentencing is scheduled for Aug. 5, 2009.

A Newark, N.J., federal grand jury has returned an indictment charging Stephen A. Favato, a resident of Point Pleasant Beach, N.J., and a partner at a major international accounting firm, with tax charges for attempting to assist one of his clients evade income taxes. Favato, a partner in the accounting firm’s Woodbridge, N.J., office, was charged with tax evasion regarding the federal income taxes of Daniel Funsch and his spouse.

The United States has sued four Certified Public Accounts (CPA), 27 tax preparers and one other individual, seeking to bar them from promoting an alleged tax scam involving bogus income tax credits claimed for sham sales of methane from landfills.

A Trumbull, Conn., resident who was involved in operating three businesses in Brooklyn, N.Y., pleaded guilty to conspiring to defraud the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Krzysztof Koczon pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Manhattan to conspiracy to aid another in filing false tax returns.

Jonathan Haynes, a former police officer with the Jackson Police Department, pleaded guilty today in federal court in Jackson, Miss., to stealing money from a citizen during an off-duty encounter.

A former contract employee of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and a dirt, sand and gravel subcontractor were both convicted on charges of conspiracy and bribery in connection with a $16 million hurricane protection project for the reconstruction of the Lake Cataouatche Levee, south of New Orleans.

The increased efforts and reallocation of personnel recently announced by the Department of Justice builds on the foundation of expertise and experience gained from ongoing efforts to combat Mexican drug cartels in the United States and to help Mexican law enforcement battle cartels in its own country.

Northrop Grumman Corp., its subsidiary Northrop Grumman Space and Mission Systems Corp., and its predecessor TRW Inc. (collectively, Northrop) have agreed to settle for $325 million, False Claims Act allegations that Northrop provided and billed the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) for defective microelectronic parts, known as Heterojunction Bipolar Transistors (HBTs).

As homeowners and communities throughout the country continue to face devastating consequences from the deep contraction in the economy and the housing market, the Obama Administration today announced a new coordinated effort across federal and state government and the private sector to target mortgage loan modification fraud and foreclosure rescue scams that threaten to hurt American homeowners and prevent them from getting the help they need during these challenging times.

An Iranian national has been arrested and charged, along with ten other defendants, with participating in a conspiracy to export U.S.-made military aircraft parts to Iran. Defendant Baktash Fattahi, an Iranian national and legal U.S. resident, was arrested in California, on April 3, 2009, on charges of conspiring to export military aircraft parts to Iran. 

A physicist in Newport News, Va., was sentenced to 51 months in prison today for illegally exporting space launch technical data and defense services to the People’s Republic of China and offering bribes to Chinese government officials. Shu Quan-Sheng, 68, a native of China, naturalized U.S. citizen and Ph.D. physicist, was sentenced by Judge Henry C. Morgan, Jr. in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Norfolk Division.

Latin Node Inc. (Latinode), a privately held Florida corporation, pleaded guilty today to violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) in connection with improper payments in Honduras and Yemen. At a hearing before U.S. District Judge Paul Courtney Huck in the Southern District of Florida, Latinode pleaded guilty to a one-count information charging a criminal violation of the FCPA’s anti-bribery provisions.

A former owner of an asbestos monitoring contractor that provided services to New York Presbyterian Hospital (NYPH) pleaded guilty today for making false statements to FBI agents and representatives of the Department’s Antitrust Division. Stephen E. McAnulty, of Brooklyn, N.Y., pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, for lying about his knowledge of a kickback and fraud conspiracy that took place at NYPH.

Six former executives of an Orange County, Calif.-based valve company were charged today in connection with a conspiracy to secure contracts by paying bribes to officials of foreign state-owned companies as well as officers and employees of foreign and domestic private companies. The contracts resulted in net profits to the company of approximately $46.5 million. According to the indictment, the defendants allegedly engaged in a bribery conspiracy from approximately 1998 through 2007.

Two Department of Defense (DOD) contractors were charged with conspiracy and bribery relating to their roles involving DOD contracts in Afghanistan. A Lebanese contracting company is also charged with participating in the same conspiracy.

A woman from the Bronx, N.Y., pleaded guilty today to conspiracy to making false claims and mail fraud. The indictment alleged that between approximately May 1, 2003, and Feb. 28, 2005, Sharon Smith and others participated in a scheme to file false and fraudulent individual income tax returns in the names of individuals who were not entitled to the refunds that were claimed.

A former Jackson County, Mo., sheriff’s deputy was indicted on April 7, 2009, by a federal grand jury for violating the civil rights of a teenage girl whom he forced to perform sexual acts in his patrol car. The indictment alleges that Steven W. Burgess, 35, of Independence, Mo., then a deputy sheriff with the Jackson County Sheriff’s Department, while acting under color of law, deprived a minor child of her Constitutional rights on July 24, 2007.

California Shellfish Company Inc., doing business as Point Adams Packing Co. (PAPCO), was sentenced today by U.S. District Court Judge Garr M. King in Portland, Ore., to pay $75,000 for a felony violation of the Clean Water Act for unpermitted discharges of wastewater into the Columbia River.

Robert Moran, of Lighthouse Point, Fla., pleaded guilty today to a criminal information charging him with filing a false income tax return. Moran appeared today before Judge James I. Cohn in Ft. Lauderdale and accepted responsibility for concealing more than $3 million in assets in a secret bank account at UBS in Switzerland.

The United States has reached a settlement with NetApp Inc. and NetApp U.S. Public Sector Inc. (collectively NetApp), following an investigation of alleged false claims and contract fraud. NetApp has agreed to pay the United States $128 million, plus interest. This is the largest contract fraud settlement the General Services Administration (GSA) has obtained to date.

An Iraqi-born Dutch citizen was sentenced to 25 years in prison today for conspiring to murder Americans overseas, including by planting roadside bombs targeting U.S. soldiers in Fallujah, Iraq, and by demonstrating on video how these explosives would be detonated to destroy American vehicles and their occupants.

The Department announced a settlement under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) with the city of Philadelphia to greatly improve accessibility for individuals with mobility disabilities at the city’s 1,200 polling places. Today’s settlement is the first settlement by the Department with a city focused solely on accessible polling places. Under the terms of the settlement, the city of Philadelphia recognizes that accessible polling places are the cornerstone of its voting accessibility program and will make its polling places accessible to persons with disabilities.

Six energy companies, in three settlements, have agreed to install pollution control equipment at a cost of over $6 million to comply with the Clean Air Act at their natural gas producing facilities in the Uinta Basin, near Vernal, Utah. The facilities are located on the Uintah &

DuPont and Lucite International Inc. have agreed to pay a $2 million civil penalty to settle Clean Air Act violations at a sulfuric acid plant in Belle, W. Va. The sulfuric acid plant is located on a 100-acre chemical manufacturing complex along the Kanawha River. The plant is owned by Lucite and operated by DuPont. The companies will pay $1 million to the United States and $1 million to the state of West Virginia.

Alta Colleges Inc. and its wholly-owned collegiate schools in Texas have agreed to pay the United States $7 million to resolve allegations under the False Claims Act that the Texas schools submitted false claims for federal student aid funds. The United States alleged that Alta’s Texas colleges obtained the requisite state licenses by misrepresenting to the state licensing agency that they complied with state job-placement reporting requirements and that their interior design programs complied with requirements for a professional license.

A federal grand jury has returned an 18-count superseding indictment charging Thomas E. Parenteau of Columbus, Ohio; Dennis G. Sartain of Hilliard, Ohio; and Bonnie Helt-Adams of Dublin, Ohio, with tax fraud, bank and wire fraud, money laundering and obstruction of justice.

A former Army and Air Force Exchange Service (AAFES) official pleaded guilty today in U.S. District Court in Columbus, Ga., for his role in a conspiracy to commit bribery involving a multimillion dollar telecommunications contract, and for not reporting the bribes he accepted on his income tax returns.

A Chicago grand jury indicted the president and vice president of an Illinois refuse disposal container repair company for engaging in a conspiracy and scheme to defraud the city of Chicago on a contract for the repair of refuse carts. This is the first case to be brought in the Department’s ongoing antitrust investigation into the refuse cart repair industry.

The United States has settled its claims filed under the False Claims Act against Lighthouse Disaster Relief and its partners, Gary Heldreth and Kerry Farmer. In its complaint, which was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana, the United States alleged that Lighthouse, Heldreth, and Farmer accepted a $5.3 million payment for work that was not completely performed on a contract with the Department of Homeland Security.

Atlantic States Cast Iron Pipe Co. a Phillipsburg, N.J.-based division of McWane Inc. of Alabama was sentenced today to pay a fine of $8 million for violations of environmental and worker safety laws as well as obstructing the federal investigation of its conduct.

A high-level Korean executive from LG Display Co. Ltd. (LG) has agreed to plead guilty and serve a year in jail in the United States for participating in a global conspiracy to fix prices in the sale of Thin Film Transistor-Liquid Crystal Display (TFT-LCD) panels.

The former head securities trader for Lancer Group hedge funds pleaded guilty on April 28, 2009, to one count of conspiracy to commit mail, wire and securities fraud. Eric Hauser, 65, pleaded guilty before U.S. District Court Judge Adalberto Jordan in Miami. Hauser admitted to participating in a scheme to manipulate trading of stocks owned by the Lancer Group hedge funds.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder today announced that more than $424 million in Recovery Act funds will go to 20 states, territories and the District of Columbia to maintain or increase public safety, while creating or retaining jobs within the law enforcement community.

The former director of information technology for a non-profit organ and tissue donation center has entered a guilty plea to intruding into her former employer’s computer network.

The owner and president of a Ronkonkoma, N.Y., designing and manufacturing company pleaded guilty to conspiring to allocate a U.S. Navy contract for Navy straps. Navy straps are a type of tiedown equipment used by the U.S. Navy to secure munitions and other supplies for transport on ships and airplanes.

The Department has reached a proposed settlement with Consolidated Multiple Listing Service Inc. (CMLS) that requires CMLS to change its rules to allow low-priced and innovative brokers to compete with traditional brokers in the Columbia, S.C., area. The Department said the rules caused consumers to pay more for residential real estate brokerage services in the Columbia area.

Marsha K. Parenteau of Columbus, Ohio, pleaded guilty today to conspiracy to commit money laundering. Parenteau appeared before Judge Michael H. Watson in Columbus.

Todd Gongwer of Dublin, Ohio; Lance Parker of Dublin, Ohio; and Joel Lee, of Galena, Ohio, pleaded guilty today to conspiracy to commit bank fraud. Gongwer, a licensed real estate agent, also pleaded guilty to tax evasion in the hearing before Judge Michael H. Watson in Columbus, Ohio. Parker also pleaded guilty to illegally structuring cash transactions.

U.S. District Judge Deborah K. Chasanow today sentenced Victor Ramirez, a/k/a “Mousey,” age 30, a native of El Salvador who resided in Hyattsville, Md., to 60 years in prison, followed by five years of supervised release.

Philip Gabriel Pettersson, aka "Stakkato," 21, a Swedish national, was indicted today on intrusion and trade secret theft charges.

Frank P. DiMartino, an accountant from Orange, Conn., pleaded guilty today to charges of tax evasion.

A South Korean businessman was indicted today for his alleged role in a bribery conspiracy for a $206 million telecommunications contract involving employees of the Army and Air Force Exchange Service (AAFES).