Platinum One Contracting, located in Capitol Heights, Md., its president, Anthony Wright, and Capitol Contractors, also located in Capitol Heights, and its president, Vernon J. Smith III, have agreed to pay the United States $200,000 to settle claims that they used false statements to obtain contracts from the Department of Defense.

"The Trafficking Victims Protection Act was a landmark piece of legislation," said Assistant Attorney General Breuer.

"Human trafficking is a grave affront to human rights and to our nation’s core values, and there can be no higher calling in our commitment to vindicating the individual rights of all people than eradicating this form of modern-day slavery," said Assistant Attorney General Perez.

All Nippon Airways Co. Ltd. (ANA) has agreed to plead guilty and to pay a $73 million criminal fine for its role in two separate conspiracies to fix prices in the air transportation industry.

An Atlanta grand jury returned an indictment today against the former president and chief executive officer of a Lakewood, N.J.-based manufacturer and distributor of food service equipment hardware, for conspiring to allocate customers for the sale of commercial and institutional food service equipment hardware.

James Bradley Branscum, Tony Branscum, both of Salado, Ark., and Curtis Coffee of Batesville, Ark., were indicted this week by a federal grand jury on charges related to their roles in burning a cross in the yard of an African-American resident in Salado on Aug. 28, 2010.

The Department of Justice has scheduled three public hearings on its regulatory proposals concerning the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

Gregory Mussmacher was convicted by a jury in May 2010 for physically abusing a juvenile in his custody and for obstructing justice to cover up what he had done.

Ilya Sobolevskiy, a 25-year-old resident of Maryland, was sentenced today to serve 12 months in prison and to pay a $3,000 fine for violating the civil rights of members of an Urbana, Ill., mosque, announced the Justice Department.

Tyrone L. Ellis, a former civilian employee of the Department of Defense (DoD), was arrested yesterday and has been charged with conspiracy, conversion and false statements related to his alleged theft of Army Emergency Relief (AER) funds while he was employed at Camp Humphreys in the Republic of Korea.

A global freight forwarding company, as well as five oil and gas service companies and subsidiaries, have all agreed to resolve investigations of Foreign Corrupt Practices Act violations.

David R. Lewalski, formerly of Gainesville, Fla., was arrested today in Manhattan on a wire fraud charge related to his alleged participation in a $30 million investment fraud scheme.

"One concrete and very direct result of the Justice Department’s participation in the Task Force is that we have forged and fostered strong relationships with our partners in the fight against financial fraud," said Assistant Attorney General Breuer.

Today, Department of Justice Attorney General Eric Holder and Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius visited Brooklyn, N.Y., where they participated in the third Regional Health Care Fraud Prevention Summit.

Steven W. Allen, a practicing attorney from Mesa, Ariz., and Allen Goodmansen, a certified public accountant, also from Mesa, were sentenced to prison for tax fraud by Phoenix federal district court Judge Roslyn O. Silver.

A federal judge in Providence, R.I., entered a preliminary injunction against Michael Brier, individually, and doing business as Refunds Now Inc., RNTS Inc., FTIRS Inc., POTIRS Inc. and IHIRS Inc. from preparing federal tax returns for others.

The Department of Justice, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the state of Indiana have reached an agreement with the city of Indianapolis on important modifications to a 2006 consent decree that will make Indianapolis’ sewer system more efficient, leading to major reductions in sewage contaminated water at a savings to the city of approximately $444 million.

Daniel Lee Jones, a Portland, Ore., white supremacist, was sentenced today to 18 months in prison and three years supervised release for threatening the president of the Lima, Ohio, chapter of the NAACP by mailing him a noose. Jones entered a guilty plea on May 17, 2010, to using the U.S. Postal Service to send a threatening communication.

The Justice Department and Hilton Worldwide Inc. today announced a comprehensive, precedent-setting agreement under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) that will make state-of-the-art accessibility changes to approximately 900 hotels nationwide.

St. Joseph Medical Center has agreed to pay the United States $22 million to settle allegations under the False Claims Act that it paid unlawful remuneration under the Anti-Kickback Act and violated the Stark Law when it entered into a series of professional services contracts with MidAtlantic Cardiovascular Associates.

The Justice Department today announced a settlement of its lawsuit alleging that Lee Enterprises Inc. and its subsidiary, Lee Publications Inc., violated the Fair Housing Act (FHA) by publishing an advertisement that discriminated on the basis of familial status in the Elko Daily Free Press.

A federal grand jury in San Francisco today returned an indictment against three former executives from two color display tube (CDT) manufacturing companies for their participation in a global conspiracy to fix prices of CDTs.

The Justice Department reached a settlement agreement with the University of South Carolina to resolve an investigation into the university’s policies and procedures related to discrimination and harassment.

CFP Group, located in McLean, Va., and its president, Roberto Clark, have agreed to pay the United States $150,000 to settle claims that they used false statements to obtain a contract from the Department of Veterans Affairs.

The Justice Department today announced that Harry Norman Realtors (HNR) and Jennifer Sherrouse have agreed to pay monetary damages and civil penalties of $60,000 to settle a Fair Housing Act lawsuit alleging that they discriminated against families with children.

Todd M. Gongwer, of Columbus, Ohio, was sentenced today to two years in prison for conspiring with convicted Columbus area home builder Thomas Parenteau to commit a mortgage fraud scheme in which the pair defrauded banks into lending more than $10 million to Gongwer, his nominees and unqualified borrowers.

The Justice Department today announced that it has reached a settlement agreement with Hoover Inc., a leading manufacturer of vacuum and carpet cleaners with facilities in Ohio and Texas, to resolve allegations that Hoover engaged in a pattern or practice of employment discrimination by imposing unnecessary and discriminatory hurdles in the I-9 process upon lawful permanent residents.

"Tonight, it is clear that the spirit of justice that motivated Justice Ortique still burns brightly," said Attorney General Holder.

The United States has filed a lawsuit seeking to stop Aurelia Sanderson Johnson of Montgomery, Ala., from preparing tax returns for others.

The Department of Justice announced today that it has reached a settlement agreement with Essex County, N.J., that, will resolve the department’s lawsuit against Essex County for refusing to permit a corrections officer to wear a religiously-mandated headscarf.

A federal grand jury indicted three men in Albuquerque, N.M., on federal hate crime charges related to a racially-motivated assault of a 22-year-old man of Navajo descent who has a significant cognitive impairment.

The Department of Justice and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) today announced additional details for the Dec. 8, 2010, public workshop in Washington, which will examine the issue of margins at various levels of the agricultural supply chain.

A jury in Rochester, N.Y., convicted Keith Gordon-Smith, and his Rochester-based asbestos abatement company, Gordon-Smith Contracting, Inc. (GSCI) of eight counts of knowing violations of the Clean Air Act asbestos work practice standards.

The Department of Justice, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the state of Rhode Island announced today that Bouchard Transportation Co. Inc. and its affiliates will pay more than $6 million to settle a portion of the federal and state natural resource damages claims for the April 2003 spill of up to 98,000 gallons of oil into Buzzards Bay.

Rico Rodrigus Williams, a former Air Force senior airman, was convicted today of second degree murder and witness tampering charges in connection with the death of Army Sergeant Juwan Johnson in Hohenecken, Germany, in 2005.

Today a federal jury in Washington convicted Kevin A. Ring, a former lobbyist who worked with Jack A. Abramoff, on five counts related to a scheme to corrupt public officials by providing a stream of things of value.

"I am deeply honored by your invitation to be with you today and to share with you some of the work in which we have been engaged at the Department of Justice to improve life in Indian Country," said Assistant Attorney General West.

"The Justice Department is firmly committed to investigating and prosecuting foreign bribery wherever it occurs – because rooting out foreign bribery matters," said Assistant Attorney General Breuer.

Fang Ping Ding was sentenced in federal court late yesterday to 37 months in prison for confiscating the passport, visa and other documents of a woman from the People’s Republic of China in order to maintain control over the victim and force her to work as an unpaid, live-in domestic servant.

The Department of Justice joined representatives from across the federal government to mark the progress made in modernizing the federal workforce hiring process over the past six months.

Juan Javier Cardenas of Miami was sentenced today in the Southern District of Florida to 121 months in prison for buying, trafficking and possessing stolen credit card information.

“We respect the jury’s verdict and are pleased that Ahmed Ghailani now faces a minimum of 20 years in prison and a potential life sentence for his role in the embassy bombings," said Matthew Miller, Director of Public Affairs.

"We’re now seeing a convergence of opportunity and innovative thinking in the correctional health care arena," said Assistant Attorney General Robinson.

"The Criminal Division, along with our partners in the U.S. Attorneys Offices, is firmly committed to supporting you in our collective mission to prevent and deter any attempts to defraud the American people of the money invested in our future through the Recovery Act," said Assistant Attorney General Breuer.

Jose Garcia, 55, was sentenced today in U.S. District Court in Miami to 57 months in prison for his participation in a Medicare fraud scheme involving a Miami-area HIV clinic.

Jeffrey Chatfield of San Diego pleaded guilty before U.S. Magistrate Judge Nita Stormes to a criminal information charging him with filing a false tax return related to a Swiss bank account that he maintained at UBS.

"It is fitting that we’ve gathered today – exactly one week after Veterans Day and one week before Thanksgiving – to honor the 19,000 veterans who serve our nation’s Justice Department," said Attorney General Holder.

Attorney General Eric Holder and the Department of Justice’s Access to Justice Initiative co-hosted a Middle Class Task Force event today with Vice President Joe Biden, announcing a series of steps designed to help middle class and low-income families secure their legal rights.

Two Michigan construction companies have agreed to pay the United States $1.407 million to resolve allegations that they knowingly submitted false claims relating to a federally funded construction project at Detroit Wayne County Metropolitan Airport.

"Justice is, quite simply, the cornerstone of American democracy. The most profound aspirations of our nation’s founding could not be satisfied, nor its audacious hopes realized, without meaningful access to justice for all."