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.

A federal jury in Memphis, Tenn., today found Arthur Sease IV, a former Memphis Police Department officer, guilty on forty-four counts of civil rights, narcotics, robbery and firearms offenses. The evidence at trial showed that from November 2003 through April 2006, Sease conspired with other Memphis police officers to use their authority as law enforcement officers, including their service weapons, to rob suspected drug dealers of cash, cocaine and marijuana. Sease and his co-conspirators would then resell the stolen drugs for their own profit.

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.

Two petroleum refiners have agreed in separate settlements to spend a total of more than $141 million in new air pollution controls at three refineries in Kansas and Wyoming.

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 former Velda City, Mo., auxiliary reserve police officer pleaded guilty today to violating the federal civil rights of a woman he sexually assaulted during a traffic stop and to concealing evidence of his crime from federal investigators. According to facts presented in court, on or about July 9, 2006, Joe Ernest Phillips, 38, then an auxiliary reserve police officer for the Velda City Police Department sexually assaulted a woman while acting under color of law and deprived her of her civil rights.

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.

Kellogg Brown & Root LLC (KBR), a global engineering, construction and services company based in Houston, pleaded guilty today to charges related to the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) for its participation in a decade-long scheme to bribe Nigerian government officials to obtain engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contracts. The EPC contracts to build liquefied natural gas (LNG) facilities on Bonny Island, Nigeria, were valued at more than $6 billion.

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.

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.

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.

The United States has sued a Sacramento, Calif., tax preparer, Chris Elmer, his firm – Associated Tax Planners Inc. (ATP) – and several members of his family associated with ATP, seeking to bar them all permanently from the tax-preparation business. The civil injunction suit was filed in Sacramento with the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California.

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.

AT&T Technical Services Corp. (AT&T-TSCO) has agreed to pay $8,266,414.33 as part of a civil settlement relating to allegations that the company violated the False Claims Act in connection with the Federal Communication Commission's E-Rate program.

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.

RE/MAX East-West, a real estate firm in Elmhurst, Ill., and one of its former real estate agents, John DeJohn, have agreed to pay $120,000 to settle allegations that they illegally steered prospective homebuyers toward and away from certain neighborhoods based on race and national origin. The consent decree was signed on Feb. 17, 2009, by U.S. District Judge Ruben Castillo.

We appreciate the diligent work of the National Research Council’s committee on forensic science in preparing this report. The Department of Justice’s principal focus in dealing with forensic evidence is on applying it dispassionately to law enforcement challenges, and we regularly use forensics to not only convict the guilty, but also to exonerate the innocent.

A federal court in Maine permanently barred Donna L. Hamilton from preparing federal tax returns for others. The court also ordered the Maine resident to provide her customer lists to the government and to mail copies of the court order to her customers. Hamilton consented to the civil injunction order.

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.

BP Products North America Inc. has agreed to spend more than $161 million on pollution controls, enhanced maintenance and monitoring, and improved internal management practices to resolve Clean Air Act violations at its Texas City, Texas, refinery.

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.

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.

The Department issued a statement today after JBS and National Beef announced the abandonment of the JBS/National Beef transaction, which the Department had filed suit to block in October.

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.

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.

U.S. District Judge Samuel B. Kent pleaded guilty today to obstruction of justice in federal court in Houston. Kent, 59, a district judge in the Southern District of Texas, pleaded guilty to making false statements to a special investigative committee of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit during an investigation of a judicial misconduct complaint filed against him.

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.

The Department today filed a lawsuit against the Wayne County Housing Authority (WCHA), in Fairfield, Ill., as well as Jill Masterson and Danna Sutton, WCHA’s executive director and assistant director, respectively, alleging that they violated the Fair Housing Act when they tried to discourage a white couple from renting their property in Fairfield to an African-American woman.

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.

Gary Moss and Devan Klausegger of Medford, Ore., pleaded guilty today to conspiring to interfere with civil rights. According to facts stipulated in their plea agreements and set forth in the indictment, on May 26, 2008, Moss poured a flammable liquid on the front lawn of the victims’ residence in the shape of a cross and the letters “KKK”.

Three former Atlanta Police Department (APD) officers were sentenced to prison today by Chief U.S. District Judge Julie E. Carnes on a charge of conspiracy to violate civil rights resulting in death, arising from the fatal police shooting of Kathryn Johnston, a 92-year old Atlanta woman.

The Department announced today that it has reached a settlement that, if approved by the court, will resolve a lawsuit filed by the Department against the Administrative Office of the Courts of the State of North Carolina and the Honorable Jerry Braswell, Senior Resident Superior Court Judge for North Carolina Judicial District 8-B, in his official capacity.

Soripada Lubis, a naturalized American citizen originally from Indonesia, pleaded guilty today to harboring illegal aliens for commercial advantage and private financial gain. Lubis’ wife, Siti Chadidjah Siregar, a citizen of Indonesia, pleaded guilty to making false statements to federal agents who were investigating the scheme.

An Iraqi-born Dutch citizen today pleaded guilty to conspiring with others 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.

An employee of a Sewell, N.J., company that provided temporary electrical utilities pleaded guilty today to participating in a fraud conspiracy at an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)-designated Superfund site in New Jersey.

Christopher Paul, a/k/a Abdul Malek, a/k/a Paul Kenyatta Laws, a 44-year-old U.S. citizen born in Columbus, Ohio, was sentenced to 20 years in prison today for conspiring with others to use a weapon of mass destruction, namely explosive devices, against targets in Europe and the United States.

The Department announced today that it has entered into a consent decree with the city of Dayton that, if approved by the court, will resolve the Department’s complaint that Dayton has been engaged in a pattern or practice of discrimination against African-Americans in its hiring of entry-level police officers and firefighters, in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VII).

Rodrigo Molina, 33, a Brazilian national who resided in Miami, was found guilty by a federal jury on 11 of 16 charged counts related to a $13.5 million money laundering conspiracy. Molina was found guilty on Feb. 25, 2009, following a seven-day jury trial in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida.

Laura Pendergest-Holt, the chief investment officer of Houston-based Stanford Financial Group (SFG), was arrested today by agents of the FBI’s Houston Field Office on a criminal complaint charging her with obstruction of a proceeding before an agency of the United States. Pendergest-Holt will make her initial appearance on Friday, Feb. 27, 2009, before U.S. Magistrate Mary Milloy at the federal courthouse in Houston.

The Department announced today that it has filed a lawsuit on behalf of Kevin Stenger, an Indiana National Guard member, against Wagner Industrial Electric Inc. (Wagner), alleging violations of the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act of 1994 (USERRA). USERRA was enacted in 1994 to protect service members from being disadvantaged in their civilian careers due to serving in the uniformed services.