The owner and operator of HME Solutions Inc., dba Lifecare Medical (Lifecare Medical), a licensed pharmaceutical wholesale company in Miami, pleaded guilty today to defrauding the Medicare program in connection with a $5.3 million HIV-infusion fraud scheme.

A federal indictment was unsealed today in U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon charging Harold James Nicholson, 58, of Sheridan, Ore., and Nathaniel James Nicholson, 24, of Eugene, Ore., with two counts of Conspiracy, one count of Acting as Agents of a Foreign Government, and four counts of Money Laundering.

A Las Vegas federal grand jury has returned an indictment charging Alan Rodrigues, a former pit boss and casino owner from Henderson, Nev.; Weston Coolidge, a businessman from Las Vegas; and Joseph Prokop, a former National Football League punter from Upland, Calif., with a tax fraud scheme for their promotion of a fraudulent tax product through the now defunct National Audit Defense Network (NADN).

A former high-level shipping executive was sentenced today to serve 48 months in jail and to pay a $20,000 criminal fine for his role in an antitrust conspiracy involving the transportation of goods to and from the continental United States and Puerto Rico by ocean vessel. This is the longest jail sentence ever imposed for a single antitrust charge.

Five commercial fishermen in St. Mary’s County, Md., a fish wholesaler, its owner and an employee have been charged in Maryland and Washington, D.C., for their role in the illegal harvest, sale, and purchase of hundreds of thousands of pounds of striped bass from the Chesapeake Bay and Potomac River from 2003 through 2007.

Two Florida homeland security vendor employees were sentenced today for conspiracy to commit wire fraud and honest services fraud by depriving their employers of money and the right of honest services, the Department of Justice announced today.

A federal grand jury indictment was unsealed today in Oklahoma City charging corrections officers Gavin Littlejohn, 25, of Oklahoma City, and Justin Isch, 21, of Edmond, Okla., with a federal civil rights violation for the fatal assault of Christopher Beckman at the Oklahoma County Detention Center in May 2007.

The United States has recovered more than $19 million from AMEC Construction Management Inc. (ACMI) to resolve allegations of fraud, false claims and kickbacks on four General Services Administration (GSA) construction contracts, as well as litigation over claims by the GSA for excess re-procurement costs incurred by GSA after it terminated ACMI’s contract to build the Thomas F. Eagleton United States Courthouse in St. Louis, Missouri. ACMI was formerly known as Morse Diesel International Inc.

Kentucky Utilities (KU), a coal-fired electric utility, has agreed to pay a $1.4 million civil penalty and spend approximately $135 million on pollution controls to resolve violations of the Clean Air Act.

A federal court in Maine has permanently barred Robert A. Grover from preparing federal tax returns for others. The court also ordered the Maine resident to provide his customer lists to the government and to mail copies of the complaint and court order to his customers. Grover consented to the civil injunction order.

A federal grand jury in San Francisco returned an indictment against two former executives from Chunghwa Picture Tubes Ltd. (Chunghwa) and one former executive from LG Display Co. Ltd. (LG) for their participation in a global conspiracy to fix prices of Thin Film Transistor-Liquid Crystal Display (TFT-LCD) panels.

A federal district court in Connecticut has permanently barred Elda Sinani, a resident of that state, from preparing federal tax returns for others. Sinani consented to the civil injunction order.

The United States has filed a complaint against Westar Energy alleging that the company violated the Clean Air Act by making major modifications to the Jeffrey Energy Center, a coal-fired power plant in St. Marys, Kan., without also installing and operating modern pollution control equipment.

A government contractor and former employee of the U.S. Department of the Treasury was sentenced in Washington today in connection with a bribery scheme involving contracts at the U.S. Tax Court in the District of Columbia. Daniel Money, 44, of Shady Side, Md., was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Ricardo M. Urbina of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, to 30 months in prison, three years supervised release and a $7,500 fine.

A Minnesota man was arrested today on charges related to an alleged Ponzi scheme involving commodity pools. Charles “Chuck” E. Hays, of Rosemount, Minn., was charged in a criminal complaint filed in the District of Minnesota with one count of wire fraud and one count of mail fraud.

Two men have been arrested and charged in an indictment unsealed today with crimes related to sex trafficking. Tommy Handy and his nephew, Everett Cooney, were indicted by a federal grand jury in Little Rock, Ark., for conspiracy to commit sex trafficking and sex trafficking for their roles in using force, fraud and coercion to cause juvenile girls and adult women to engage in commercial sex acts.

Michael Haynes, a practicing minister, and David Jett, both of Las Vegas, were sentenced to 37 months in prison and five years probation, respectively, by Chief U.S. District Judge Robert L. Hunt in Las Vegas. Haynes and Jett were also ordered to pay restitution of $834,000 and $150,000, respectively, to the U.S. Treasury.

Carlos Serrano, 64, of Glendale, Calif., was sentenced to 18 months in a community correctional facility in connection with a $1.3 million scheme to defraud the First International Bank of Connecticut (FIB) and the Export-Import Bank of the United States (Ex-Im Bank). In addition to his prison sentence, Serrano was placed on five years of probation and ordered to pay restitution of $924,569 to the Ex-Im Bank.

Theodore Allan, 54, of Glendale, Ariz., was sentenced today to five years in prison for distribution of child pornography. Allan was indicted on charges of distribution, receipt and possession of child pornography on March 6, 2007.

Terry Brian Dobbs, an Oklahoma businessman, was sentenced today to 11 years in prison for receiving images of child pornography. Dobbs, 51, was also sentenced to lifetime supervised release following his term in prison by U.S. District Judge Gregory Frizzel, and was ordered to pay an $8,000 fine.

A 24-count indictment charging five individuals with various crimes arising from an alleged scheme to defraud investors through the manipulation of the publicly traded stocks of three companies was unsealed today in Tulsa, Okla.

A federal grand jury in San Francisco today returned a two-count indictment against the former Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Chunghwa Picture Tubes Ltd. for his participation in global conspiracies to fix prices of two types of cathode ray tubes (CRTs) used in computer monitors and televisions.

A former member of the U.S. armed services pleaded guilty today in the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona in Tucson for his role in a widespread bribery and extortion conspiracy. The charges arise from Operation Lively Green, an undercover investigation conducted by the FBI that began in December 2001. To date, 56 additional defendants have been sentenced for their roles in the conspiracy.

Five defendants, all members or associates of an extended family, face potential life sentences after being found guilty of sex trafficking for participating in a scheme that lured young Central American women and girls into the Los Angeles area and forced them into prostitution. The defendants, four Guatemalan nationals and one Mexican citizen, were convicted on Feb. 11, 2009, of conspiracy; sex trafficking by force, fraud or coercion; and importation of aliens for purposes of prostitution.

A fish wholesaler, its owner and an employee have all pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia for the illegal purchase and sale of striped bass from the Chesapeake Bay and Potomac River from 2003 through 2007.

Four individuals have been arrested and charged with carrying out a racially-motivated beating and conspiring to interfere with the civil rights of an African-American man in Nampa, Idaho.

APL Limited has agreed to pay the government $26.3 million to resolve allegations that it submitted false claims to the United States in connection with contracts to transport cargo in shipping containers to support U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The United States has sued a Clive, Iowa, couple to bar them from preparing federal tax returns for others. According to the government complaint, Jill Schwartz-Musin, her husband Howard Musin, and their business, SSC Services, prepare fraudulent federal income tax returns for small business owners.

Six Miami-Dade County residents have been indicted in connection with an alleged $10 million Medicare fraud scheme operated out of Midway Medical, a Miami clinic that purported to specialize in treating HIV/AIDS patients.

Tai Khiem Tran, 47, pleaded guilty today in San Diego to conspiring to participate in a racketeering enterprise, the “Tran Organization,” in a scheme to cheat casinos across the United States and Canada. Tran admitted that he and his co-conspirators unlawfully obtained up to $1 million during card cheats.

Gunther Wenzek, a German national, was arraigned today in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Va., on a nine count indictment charging him with three felony counts of smuggling protected coral into the United States port of Portland, Ore., three felony counts of violating the Lacey Act and three misdemeanor charges of violating the Endangered Species Act.

Timothy Kyle Dunaway, 24, of Wichita Falls, Texas, was sentenced today to 41 months in prison by U.S. District Court Judge Reed O’Connor in Wichita Falls for selling counterfeit computer software through the Internet in violation of criminal copyright infringement laws. The software sold by Dunaway had a combined retail value of more than $1 million.

Eduardo Cortez, a resident of Mays Landing, N.J., was sentenced to 36 months incarceration and three years of supervised release by U.S. District Judge Noel L. Hillman in Camden, N.J. According to his plea agreement, Cortez and his employees knowingly prepared false and fraudulent tax returns for customers that included false and inflated deductions, credits and adjustments.

The United States has filed a complaint against Louisiana Generating alleging that the company violated the Clean Air Act by operating the Big Cajun 2 Power Plant, a coal-fired power plant in New Roads, La., without also installing and operating modern pollution control equipment after the generating units had undergone major modifications.

UBS AG, Switzerland’s largest bank, has entered into a deferred prosecution agreement on charges of conspiring to defraud the United States by impeding the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). As part of the deferred prosecution agreement and in an unprecedented move, UBS, based on an order by the Swiss Financial Markets Supervisory Authority (FINMA), has agreed to immediately provide the United States government with the identities of, and account information for, certain United States customers of UBS’s cross-border business.

The United States has intervened in two whistleblower suits filed in the Northern District of California against the drug manufacturer Scios Inc. and its parent company, Johnson &off-label” use because it is not included in the drug’s FDA approved product label.

The government filed a lawsuit today in Miami against Swiss bank UBS AG. The lawsuit asks the court to order the international bank to disclose to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) the identities of the bank’s U.S. customers with secret Swiss accounts. According to the lawsuit, as many as 52,000 U.S. customers hid their UBS accounts from the government in violation of the tax laws.

DaJuan Jackson, a former tax return preparer in District Heights, Md., was sentenced to 51 months in prison by U.S. District Judge Roger W. Titus for preparing false tax returns for customers.

Jack A. Taylor, 68, a resident of Rolling Springs, Ky., pleaded guilty today to producing child pornography and was sentenced to 20 years in prison. Taylor, appearing before U.S. District Court Judge David F. Hamilton in Indianapolis, was also ordered to serve a lifetime of supervised release following completion of his prison term, forfeit all items seized during the investigation that were used to commit his offense, and to pay $4,000 in restitution to his victim.

A federal grand jury in Newark, N.J., has returned an eight-count indictment charging a Liberian company that manages an oceangoing bulk carrier vessel, M/V Myron N, along with the ship’s chief engineer and second engineer for covering up discharges of oil-contaminated waste at sea.

Five St. Mary’s County, Md., commercial fisherman pleaded guilty today to illegally overfishing striped bass also known as rockfish.

“John Doe 17,” a white male with curly brown hair weighing approximately 210-250 pounds, has been indicted by a federal grand jury for transporting child pornography via the Internet on or about May 5, 2007. This is the seventeenth such case to be investigated and the twelfth prosecuted through the Endangered Child Alert Program (ECAP), which was initiated by the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS) and the FBI in 2004. The program uses national and international media exposure of unknown adult perpetrators featured in child pornography in an effort to identify, locate, apprehend and prosecute such offenders and to rescue abused children.

The Department of Justice today filed a lawsuit against the Board of Education of the City of Chicago (Board), alleging pregnancy discrimination in employment against former elementary school teacher Traci Meziere.

A federal district court in Tennessee has permanently barred Chattanooga resident Demita Brown-Watkins from preparing federal income tax returns for others. Brown-Watkins agreed to the civil injunction order. According to the government complaint, Brown-Watkins ran her tax-preparation business through two companies—Fastax and Rapid Tax Service—and advertised the “largest refund in town.”

The Department announced the transfer to the United Kingdom of Binyam Mohammed, an Ethiopian national and former resident of the United Kingdom who had been held at the Guantanamo detention facility since 2004.

Leonard Fox a/k/a Anton a/k/a “Daddy” pleaded guilty today to a federal civil rights charge for sex trafficking of minors. In U.S. District Court in Memphis, Fox admitted to recruiting and obtaining underage girls and arranging for those girls to engage in commercial sex acts for his financial benefit.

Rodrick Williams, a former tax return preparer from District Heights, Md., was sentenced to 24 months in prison by U.S. District Judge Roger W. Titus for preparing false tax returns for customers.

The Department announced today the resolution of the lawsuit filed by the United States against the state of Vermont to enforce the reporting requirements of the Uniformed Overseas Citizen Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA). UOCAVA is designed to ensure that members of the uniformed services and overseas citizens may effectively participate in federal elections.

A former employee of the Export-Import Bank of the United States (Ex-Im Bank) has been indicted on corruption and tax violations arising from her alleged receipt of a $100,000 bribe while working at the Ex-Im Bank.

U. S. District Judge Steven D. Merryday today sentenced the Japanese corporation Hiong Guan Navegacion Japan Co. Ltd., that operates the commercial cargo ship M/V Balsa-62, to three years probation and $1.75 million in penalties for conspiring to falsify and falsifying environmental compliance records.