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.

The Department has reached agreement with New York officials to help ensure that military service members and other U.S. citizens living overseas have the opportunity to vote in the state’s March 31, 2009, special election in the 20th Congressional District.

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.

The United States has brought suit in federal court against Gayle Lemmon of Humboldt, Iowa. The lawsuit seeks to bar her and her firm from preparing federal tax returns for others. According to the government complaint in the case, Lemmon’s firm, Gayle’s Bookkeeping and Tax Service Inc., prepares federal income tax returns for customers that unlawfully understate tax liabilities by claiming improper deductions for the business use of the home and for non-deductible personal expenses.

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.

Traian Bujduveanu has pleaded guilty in the Southern District of Florida to a charge of conspiring to illegally export military and dual use aircraft parts to Iran. Bujduveanu appeared on behalf of himself and his now defunct corporation, Orion Aviation, in federal court in Miami today to announce his guilty plea.

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.

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.

Three defendants were sentenced to prison today after pleading guilty in January 2008 to federal charges of running an “advance-fee” scheme that targeted U.S. victims with promises of millions of dollars.

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).

The Department of Justice has initiated removal proceedings against a Sharon, Penn., resident who served as an armed SS guard at two Nazi concentration camps in Germany during World War II.

A partner in a Pennsylvania-based lobbying firm was sentenced today by U.S. District Judge Henry H. Kennedy Jr., to five months of home detention for destroying evidence in connection with a public corruption investigation, Acting Assistant Attorney General Rita M. Glavin of the Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney Jeffrey A. Taylor for the District of Columbia, Assistant Director of the FBI’s Washington Field Office Joseph Persichini Jr., and Special Agent in Charge C. André Martin of Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Criminal Investigation announced.

The Department announced that on April 7, 2009, it will monitor the election in Kane County, Ill., to ensure compliance with the Voting Rights Act of 1965, as amended. Under the Voting Rights Act, the Justice Department is authorized to ask the Office of Personnel Management to send federal observers to areas that are specially covered in the act or by a federal court order.

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. 

Consultores De Navegacion, a Spanish company that operates the M/T Nautilus, an ocean-going chemical tanker ship, pleaded guilty today in U.S. District Court in Boston and has agreed to pay a fine of $2.5 million for criminal violations related to the overboard discharge of oil-contaminated bilge waste on the high seas.

Jorge Flores-Rojas, 44, an undocumented Mexican national, was sentenced to 24 years in prison by Chief Judge Robert J. Conrad, Jr. in Charlotte, N.C., for two counts of sex trafficking of minors and one count of interstate transportation of an adult for purposes of commercial sex. Flores-Rojas pled guilty to the charges on Oct. 7, 2008.

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.

Two former senior executives of CSK Auto Corp. (CSK), have been charged in a 31-count indictment for a scheme to manipulate the company’s reported earnings. The indictment, returned on April 7, 2009, by a federal grand jury in Phoenix, charges Martin G. Fraser, 53, of Glendale, Ariz., and Don W. Watson, 53, of Gilbert, Ariz., with conspiracy, securities fraud, mail fraud, false filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), false books and records, and false statements to its auditor.

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.

Three international airline companies—Luxembourg-based Cargolux Airlines International S.A., Japan-based Nippon Cargo Airlines Co. Ltd. (NCA), and Korea-based Asiana Airlines Inc.—have each agreed to plead guilty and pay criminal fines totaling $214 million for conspiring to fix prices in the air cargo industry. In addition, Asiana was charged with fixing the passenger fares charged on flights from the United States to Korea.

The Department has entered into a consent decree with the City of Ecorse, Mich., that, if approved by the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Mich., will resolve the Department’s complaint against Ecorse filed in July 2008.

The Justice Department today announced the filing of a lawsuit and the settlement of its claims against Fort Bend County, Texas, alleging violations of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, as amended, and the Help America Vote Act (HAVA).

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.

Adam S. Pretti, 31, a former deputy with the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office, pleaded guilty today in federal court in Memphis, Tenn., to using excessive force during an encounter with a citizen. During his plea hearing, Pretti acknowledged that he abused his authority as a law enforcement officer when, in March 2006, he willfully and without justification used excessive force by striking a man in the head.

U.S. District Court Judge Robert W. Gettlemen entered an order barring tax preparers, Michael J. Singleton and his wife, Ladonna Singleton, from preparing federal tax returns for others. The court’s ruling came after the Singletons failed to defend against the government’s allegations.

A federal court has barred a Chicago tax preparation firm, El Caminante, Inc. and its principal operator, Maria Colica, from preparing federal income tax returns claiming false tax credits. The company and Colica agreed to the injunction. The Government civil injunction complaint filed in the case alleged that Colica fraudulently claimed fuel tax credits for customers who were not entitled to them.

Following three and a half days of trial and 19 minutes of deliberations, a Gulfport, Miss., federal jury yesterday convicted Paul Richard Arceneaux, a resident of Church Point, La., of tax crimes. Arceneaux, who owned and operated Speedy Cash Inc. in Gulfport, was convicted of all counts of the indictment charging him with corruptly interfering with the Internal Revenue laws and failing to file his income tax returns for 2003 and 2004.

Two commercial fisherman pleaded guilty today in U.S. District Court in Greenbelt, Md., to violations of the Lacey Act, the federal law that prohibits individuals from transporting, selling or buying illegally harvested fish, in this case striped bass or rockfish.

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 Department announced that a federal district court judge in Louisville, Ky., approved a settlement of the Department’s lawsuit alleging that those involved in the design and construction of 12 multifamily housing complexes discriminated on the basis of disability. The complexes contain more than 800 units covered by the Fair Housing Act’s accessibility provisions.

Four individuals have been indicted on charges of federal civil rights violations relating to the in-custody death of a detainee at the Lucas County Jail in Ohio and an alleged subsequent four-year cover-up of the role that jail personnel played in the death. The indictment returned by a federal grand jury in Toledo, Ohio, was returned today.

The Department today asked a federal court in Denver to approve service of a John Doe summons on First Data Corporation. “John Doe” summonses allow the IRS to obtain information about United States taxpayers whose identities are not yet known. The information expected in response to the summons will help the IRS identify merchants who use offshore accounts to evade their United States tax liabilities.

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.

Texas Oil and Gathering Inc., its owner John Kessel and its operations manager Edgar Pettijohn pleaded guilty today in U.S. District Court in Houston to criminal violations related to the disposal of refinery wastes at an underground injection well in violation of the Safe Drinking Water Act.

A federal court has permanently barred Donald Morris of Bloomfield, Conn., from preparing federal income tax returns for others. Morris consented to the permanent injunction order, which was entered by U.S. District Court Judge Jane C. Hall in the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut.

A Virginia man pleaded guilty today to selling counterfeit computer software on eBay in violation of criminal copyright infringement laws, announced Acting Assistant Attorney General Rita M. Glavin of the Criminal Division and U.S. Attorney Jeffrey A. Taylor for the District of Columbia.

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 &

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.

Two subsidiaries of the Swedish company Trelleborg AB, one based in Virginia and the other in France, have agreed to plead guilty and pay a total of $11 million in criminal fines for their participation in separate conspiracies affecting the sales of marine products sold in the United States and elsewhere.

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.