The Department of Justice (DOJ), in collaboration with the Department of Education (ED), today released a school discipline guidance package that will assist states, districts and schools in developing practices and strategies to enhance school climate, and ensure those policies and practices comply with federal law.

A Florida man was sentenced to serve 15 months in prison, and his wife was sentenced to 24 months of probation, for their roles in a bribery and fraud scheme.

"Too often, so-called “zero-tolerance” policies – however well-intentioned – make students feel unwelcome in their own schools. They disrupt the learning process. And they can have significant and lasting negative effects on the long-term well-being of our young people – increasing their likelihood of future contact with juvenile and criminal justice systems," said Attorney General Holder.

Two individuals charged with running a telemarketing operation that defrauded Spanish-speaking consumers were sentenced today in Miami federal district court.

Michael Slattery Jr., an Irish national, was sentenced in federal court in Brooklyn, N.Y., today to serve 14 months in prison to be followed by three years of supervised release.

Today the District Court in the District of Columbia dismissed a challenge filed by the Florida Bankers Association and Texas Bankers Association challenging 2012 amendments to the Department of the Treasury’s interest-reporting regulations.

Remarks as Prepared for Delivery by Associate Attorney General Tony West at the Martin Luther King Jr. Day Celebration Hosted by the Union League of Chicago

The Justice Department and the Internal Revenue Service announced today that on Jan. 21, 2014, a federal jury in Palm Beach, Fla., convicted Paul F. Wrubleski, a resident of Weston, Fla., of one count of corruptly impeding the due administration of the internal revenue laws and four counts of filing false claims for tax refunds.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder on Thursday urged Congress to pass the bipartisan Smarter Sentencing Act, introduced by Senators Dick Durbin and Mike Lee.

The United States has asked a federal court in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., to permanently bar Keisha Stewart and her company, Professional Tax Services Inc., from preparing federal tax returns for others, the Justice Department announced today.

The Department of Justice published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking today intended to revise the department’s Americans with Disabilities Act Title II and Title III regulations to implement the requirements of the ADA Amendments Act of 2008.

A federal jury in Miami today convicted a South Florida resident for her role in an international fraudulent lottery scheme that targeted U.S. citizens.

The Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division issued a statement after announcing the closing of its investigation into Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.’s use of its portfolio of standards-essential patents that it had committed to license to industry participants on fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory terms (SEPs) to exclude certain Apple, Inc. products from the U.S. market.

The heads of the antitrust agencies of the United States, Canada and Mexico – Assistant Attorney General Bill Baer of the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division, Chairwoman Edith Ramirez of the Federal Trade Commission, Canadian Commissioner of Competition John Pecman and President Alejandra Palacios Prieto of the Mexican Federal Competition Commission – met today in Washington, D.C., to discuss their mutual efforts to ensure continued effective antitrust enforcement cooperation in our increasingly interconnected markets.

Three individuals charged in connection with operating a series of fraudulent business opportunity companies pleaded guilty this week in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida. Mitchell Berman (aka Brian Griffin) of Boca Raton, Fla., and Robert Gallo (aka Bobby Pace, Vincent Pastone, Joe Barone, Bobby Marino, Anthony Russo) of Coconut Creek, Fla., pleaded guilty this morning to one count of conspiracy to commit mail fraud.

The Barrio Azteca Lieutenant who ordered the murders of a U.S. Consulate employee, her husband and the husband of another U.S. Consulate employee was found guilty by a jury on all counts charged.

Two Florida men were sentenced today to serve 84 months in prison for defrauding thousands of homeowners in a $4 million nationwide home loan modification scheme.

The government has asked a federal court in California to issue an injunction shutting down the importation and sales activities of four California companies and six individuals in connection with their imports of illegal children’s products containing, among other things, lead, phthalates and small parts inappropriate for children under age three.

In a video message released today, Attorney General Eric Holder called on Congress to create a strong, national standard for quickly alerting consumers whose information may be compromised by cyberattacks. This legislation would strengthen the Justice Department's ability to combat crime, ensure individual privacy, and prevent identity theft, while also helping to bring cybercriminals to justice.

A former employee of a Florida-based airline fuel supply service company pleaded guilty today to obstructing an investigation into fraud and anticompetitive conduct in the airline charter services industry.

On Monday, March 3, 2014, at 2:00 p.m. EST, at an event marking World Wildlife Day, INTERPOL’s Environmental Security Sub-directorate will present an executive summary of two strategic law enforcement reports on wildlife crime.

The United States has asked a federal court in Dallas, Texas, to permanently bar Ricia Daniels and her company, Ricia’s Convenience Tax Service, from preparing federal tax returns for others, the Justice Department announced today.

A former owner and operator of a Florida-based airline fuel supply service company pleaded guilty today to participating in a kickback scheme to defraud Illinois-based Ryan International Airlines, a charter airline company located in Rockford, Ill.

Halifax Hospital Medical Center and Halifax Staffing Inc. (Halifax), a hospital system based in the Daytona Beach, Fla., area, have agreed to pay $85 million to resolve allegations that they violated the False Claims Act by submitting claims to the Medicare program that violated the Physician Self-Referral Law, commonly known as the Stark Law.

Anthony Merrell Tyler, 33, pleaded guilty in federal court today to violating the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act for his role in a 2011 racially motivated attack on a white man and an African-American woman in Marysville, Calif.

A federal jury in Houston today convicted two owners of a former Houston mental health care company, Spectrum Care P.A. (Spectrum), several of its employees and the owners of certain Houston group care homes for their participation in a $97 million Medicare fraud scheme.

Alex Wisidagama, a citizen of Singapore formerly employed by Glenn Defense Marine Asia (GDMA), pleaded guilty today to one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States for his role in a scheme to overbill the U.S. Navy for ship husbanding services.

Tonawanda Coke Corporation was sentenced in federal court in Buffalo, N.Y., Wednesday to pay a $12.5 million penalty and $12.2 million in community service payments for criminal violations of the Clean Air Act (CAA) and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA).

Angela Althea Peart was sentenced in connection with her role in a fraudulent international lottery scheme that targeted U.S. citizens.

A federal court in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., permanently barred Keisha Stewart, a tax preparer in Plantation, Fla., from preparing federal tax returns for others, the Justice Department announced today.

The Department of Justice, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), and the Competition Bureau Canada today issued a set of “best practices” to make more transparent how they coordinate merger reviews that affect the United States and Canada.

Seven individuals have been indicted in the Southern District of Florida for their alleged participation in a mortgage fraud scheme in the Miami area.

A federal indictment returned under seal in June 2013 and unsealed today charges six foreign nationals, including a Ukrainian businessman and a government official in India, with participating in an alleged international racketeering conspiracy.

Edward N. Levine, 63, of Mill Valley, Calif., and Lumsden W. Quan, 46, of San Francisco, were indicted by a federal grand jury in Las Vegas today for the illegal sale of two horns from an endangered black rhinoceros.

The United States has entered into a settlement agreement with the Kerr-McGee Corporation and certain of its affiliates (“New Kerr-McGee”), and their parent Anadarko Petroleum Corporation, in a fraudulent conveyance case brought by the United States and co-plaintiff Anadarko Litigation Trust (the “Trust”) in the bankruptcy of Tronox Inc. and its subsidiaries (Tronox), announced Deputy Attorney General James Cole, Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resource Division Robert G. Dreher, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Preet Bharara, and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Assistant Administrator Cynthia Giles.

A fourth U.S. Navy official has been charged in a complaint unsealed today with accepting cash, luxury travel and consumer electronics from a foreign defense contractor in exchange for classified and internal U.S. Navy information.

"Earth Day is another reminder to me of that commitment, a commitment that the Department of Justice is dedicated not only to protecting the people of our country, but also to protecting its natural resources."

Arturo Gallegos Castrellon, aka “Benny,” “Farmero,” “51,” “Guero,” “Pecas,” “Tury,” and “86,” 35, of Chihuahua, Mexico, the Barrio Azteca Lieutenant who ordered the March 2010 murders of a U.S. Consulate employee, her husband and the husband of another U.S. Consulate employee, was sentenced today to serve life in prison.

"Each of the 2014 grant recipients are doing amazing work – day in and day out they are changing the lives of the most vulnerable residents in the District of Columbia. And they are strengthening our nation’s legal community," said Principal Deputy Director Hanson

The International Competition Network (ICN) adopted new recommended practices for predatory pricing analysis and competition assessment, and approved new work product on international merger enforcement cooperation, confidentiality protections during investigations, leniency policy and digital evidence gathering.

Noting that African-American and Hispanic males are arrested at disproportionately high rates, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said Monday that the Justice Department will seek to collect data about stops, searches and arrests as part of a larger effort to analyze and reduce the possible effect of bias within the criminal justice system.

A Dominican national was sentenced today for his role in trafficking the identities and corresponding identity documents of Puerto Rican U.S. citizens.

Charmaine Anne King was sentenced today in connection with her role in a fraudulent international lottery scheme that targeted U.S. citizens.

Baptist Health System Inc. (Baptist Health), the parent company for a network of affiliated hospitals and medical providers in the Jacksonville, Florida, area, has agreed to pay $2.5 million to settle allegations that its subsidiaries violated the False Claims Act by submitting claims to federal health care programs for medically unnecessary services and drugs.

Attorney General Eric Holder and Secretary Arne Duncan today announced updated guidance to assist public elementary and secondary schools to ensure enrollment processes are consistent with the law and fulfill their obligation to provide all children – no matter their background – equal access to an education.

Especially as we approach the 60th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education, in which Chief Justice Earl Warren called education “a right which must be made available to all on equal terms,” it is imperative that we do everything in our power to end policies or practices that deny this right to those who are constitutionally entitled to it.

Dr. Patricia Lynn Hough, of Englewood, Florida, was sentenced today to serve two years in prison and three years supervised release by U.S. District Court Judge John Steele in Fort Myers, Florida, for conspiring to defraud the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) by concealing millions of dollars in assets and income in offshore bank accounts at UBS and other foreign banks, and for filing false individual income tax returns which failed to report the existence of those foreign accounts or the income earned in those accounts.

Three individuals who pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit mail fraud in connection with operating a series of fraudulent business opportunity companies were sentenced in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida.

Late yesterday, a federal jury in the Northern District of Texas convicted a physician and a home health agency manager for their participation in a $3 million Medicare fraud conspiracy.

In today’s nationwide takedown, scores of defendants were arrested across the country for engaging in health care fraud – to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars in fraudulent bills to Medicare. Among the defendants charged today were doctors, home health care providers, doctor’s assistants, pharmacy owners and medical supply company executives.