Month: May 2022

Source: United States Department of Justice News

New Haven – Vanessa Roberts Avery, 47, of West Hartford, was sworn in today as the United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut by Chief U.S. District Judge Stefan R. Underhill in New Haven.  President Joe Biden nominated Ms. Avery to serve as U.S. Attorney on January 26, 2022, and the U.S. Senate confirmed her nomination on April 27, 2022.

“It is an honor to return to this office, in the city where I was raised, to serve as Connecticut’s U.S. Attorney,” said U.S. Attorney Avery.  “I look forward to working with the many talented members of this office, as well as our dedicated law enforcement partners, to enforce federal criminal and civil laws, protect our communities, and ensure justice for all who live in our state.”

Prior to her appointment as U.S. Attorney, Ms. Avery served as the Associate Attorney General and Chief of the Division of Enforcement and Public Protection at the Connecticut Office of the Attorney General.  Since January 2019, she led the affirmative litigation and investigations on behalf of the State of Connecticut in the areas of antitrust, opioids, government program fraud, consumer protection, child protection, environment, energy, finance, privacy and cybersecurity, and civil rights.  Ms. Avery served on the Attorney General’s Litigation Management Committee, represented the Attorney General on the Connecticut Bar Association Policing Task Force, and led the COVID-19 Fraud Task Force in coordination with the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Federal Bureau of Investigation and Chief State’s Attorney’s Office.

From 2014 to 2019, Ms. Avery was an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Civil Division in this District, prosecuting a variety of complex civil fraud cases under the False Claims Act, asset forfeiture cases, environmental violations, civil rights matters, and defending Bivens and medical malpractice cases.

From 2006 to 2014, Ms. Avery was a litigation attorney at McCarter & English LLP, where she focused on business and financial litigation, intellectual property, trust and probate, and product liability cases.  From 2003 to 2005, Ms. Avery was a Trial Attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice in the Commercial Litigation Branch of the Civil Division in Washington, D.C.  From 1999 to 2003, she was an attorney in the Hartford Trial Group at Cummings & Lockwood LLC.

Ms. Avery is a graduate of Yale University and the Georgetown University Law Center.  She is a New Haven native and a graduate of the New Haven Public Schools.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office is charged with enforcing federal criminal laws in Connecticut and representing the federal government in civil litigation.  As U.S. Attorney, Ms. Avery supervises a staff of approximately 68 Assistant U.S. Attorneys and approximately 57 staff members at offices in New Haven, Hartford and Bridgeport.

Ms. Avery is the 54th U.S. Attorney for the District of Connecticut, an office that was established in 1789.

Source: United States Department of Justice News

A federal jury found a Sand Springs man guilty Friday for sending hundreds of sexually explicit messages to a male minor and for touching the child in a sexual manner, announced U.S. Attorney Clint Johnson.

Jeremy Nicholas Botonis, 44, was convicted of one count of coercion and enticement of a child and one count of abusive sexual contact in Indian Country.

“Jeremy Botonis was a predator lying in wait. He gained the trust of a vulnerable child then exploited the child for his own sexual gratification,” said U.S. Attorney Clint Johnson. “The victim in this case displayed incredible strength as he testified in federal court this week. He is to be commended along with our law enforcement partners and federal prosecutor Chris Nassar for ensuring Botonis was held accountable for his predatory crimes.”

“Too often, deviant individuals like Botonis use social media to gain access to minors and build trust only to exploit them,” said Christopher Miller, acting Special Agent in Charge, HSI Dallas. “Thanks to the bravery and testimony of the young victim, the perpetrator was brought to justice, providing a stark reminder to predators who sexually exploit children that HSI will never relent in our collective law enforcement efforts to protect our most vulnerable citizens.”

On Aug. 24, 2019, while in the woods, Botonis placed his hand inappropriately on the clothed minor victim’s thigh and what the victim described as his “private area.” Then he attempted to kiss the victim while the two were in the woods. When the child rejected his advances and pulled away, Botonis became upset and concerned the child might reveal what had occurred to his parents. Later, he stood over the victim and told him to delete prior messages between the two that were associated with Botonis’ name and Facebook account, knowing that those conversations would incriminate him. He continued pressuring the child to delete the messages, and the victim eventually relented.

After the incident, Botonis continued to communicate with the victim using a Facebook page titled “Wolf Page.” Several weeks later, the victim’s father discovered sexually explicit messages sent to the victim from “Wolf Page.” The victim told his father the page belonged to Botonis, and disclosed that Botonis had attempted to kiss him in the woods during an outing. The child’s parents reported the crime to authorities. During the investigation, the child further disclosed to law enforcement that Botonis had also touched him inappropriately the day of the incident.

Federal agents were eventually able to extract messages from the victim’s cell phone and discovered 5,000 messages related to the case. Starting in May 2019, Botonis began grooming the victim by sending increasingly flirtatious and suggestive messages over Facebook messenger. Hundreds of sexually suggestive messages from Botonis were recovered where the defendant talked about the child’s looks, professed his “love” for the victim, made sexual innuendos, described sex acts, and further suggested the two should engage in the “furry lifestyle,” which for some is a sexual fetish that involves dressing in animal costumes and performing sex acts. At one point, the victim indicated to the defendant that he was uncomfortable and did not want to receive any further sexual messages.

At trial, federal prosecutors contended that at the time of the crime, Botonis was a 41-year-old man obsessed with a vulnerable 13-year-old child, bombarding the victim with messages nearly every day and even guilt tripping the victim when he did not respond in kind. Prosecutors argued that while Botonis tried to portray himself as non-threatening and trustworthy, he was, in reality, a predator hiding in the shadows, waiting for a vulnerable victim and the right moment to engage. Prosecutors then asked the jury to hold Botonis accountable for the crimes he committed against the child.

The jury returned guilty verdicts within two hours. Sentencing is tentatively set for September 2022.

The case was initially charged in Mayes County District Court but was dismissed in April 2021 due to lack of jurisdiction based on the Supreme Court’s decision in McGirt v Oklahoma. The U.S. Attorney’s Office then charged the case in federal court in May 2021.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations and the Mayes County Sheriff’s Office conducted the investigation. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Christopher J. Nassar and Stephanie Ihler prosecuted the case.

Source: United States Department of Justice News

A man who pointed a personally-made firearm, also known as a ghost gun, at a woman and threatened to kill her pleaded guilty Thursday in federal court, announced U.S. Attorney Clint Johnson.

Ronnell Dontae Butler, 26, of Oklahoma City, pleaded guilty to felon in possession of ammunition.

According to court documents, an argument had escalated between Butler and a woman when he pulled a loaded gun from the waistband of his pants, pointed it in the direction of the victim, and threatened to kill her. He did so while in the presence of a four-year-old child.

The victim was able to move to the kitchen at one point where she dialed 911, allowing dispatchers to listen to what was occurring and at times whispering to the 911 operator that Butler was threatening to shoot her. When Tulsa police officers arrived, Butler was unarmed but officers quickly located a personally-made firearm in the child’s pink backpack. The firearm was loaded with 10 rounds of  9mm ammunition. The firearm used in the crime is known as a “ghost gun”—an unserialized and personally-assembled firearm built using a parts kit. The crime occurred on Nov. 1, 2021.

In April, the Department of Justice announced that it had submitted to the Federal Register the “Frame or Receiver” Final Rule, which modernizes the definition of a firearm. Once implemented, this rule will clarify that parts kits that are readily convertible to firearms are subject to the same regulations as traditional firearms. The Department noted that the regulatory updates would help curb the proliferation of “ghost guns,” which are often assembled from kits, do not contain serial numbers, and are sold without background checks, making them more difficult to trace and easy to acquire by criminals. An April 11, 2022, White House fact sheet explained that the “rule clarifies that these kits qualify as ‘firearms’ under the Gun Control Act, and that commercial manufacturers of such kits must therefore become licensed and include serial numbers on the kits’ frame or receiver, and commercial sellers of these kits must become federally licensed and run background checks prior to a sale – just like they have to do with other commercially-made firearms.”

The FBI and Tulsa Police Department conducted the investigation. Assistant U.S. Attorney Cymetra M. Williams is prosecuting the case.

This case is being prosecuted as part of the Project Safe Neighborhoods initiative. PSN is the nationwide federal initiative to disrupt gun violence strategically and comprehensively, using all available enforcement and prosecutive tools.  The initiative involves a partnership of federal, state, and local authorities, uniting their efforts and leveraging existing and new resources. The U.S. Attorney’s Office and its partners tailor their efforts to meet their own district’s unique needs, helping ensure the safety of communities in the Northern District of Oklahoma.

Source: United States Department of Justice News

Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) service providers, VoIP Terminator Inc. and BLMarketing Inc., and their owner, Muhammed Usman Khan, agreed to a court order resolving Federal Trade Commission (FTC) allegations that they facilitated tens of millions of illegal telemarketing calls, including some calls to numbers listed on the “Do Not Call” Registry and robocalls that displayed “spoofed” or fake caller ID numbers. This stipulated order resolves a lawsuit the United States filed in federal district court in the Middle District of Florida.

The government’s complaint alleges that Florida-based VoIP Terminator, Virginia-based BLMarketing and Pakistan resident and citizen Khan violated the FTC Act and the FTC’s Telemarketing Sales Rule (TSR). The defendants violated the TSR by assisting and facilitating the transmission of illegal calls for their customers, continuing to do so even after learning that their services were being used to initiate calls to numbers on the Do Not Call Registry and to place spoofed robocalls. The complaint alleges that the illegal calls transmitted by defendants included recorded messages about air duct cleaning services that purportedly filtered out COVID-19, preying on consumers’ fears of the virus, as well as messages involving credit card interest rate reduction and tech support scams.

The stipulated order bars the defendants from similar misconduct in the future, requires them to screen and monitor customers, terminate customers if they are engaged in improper telemarketing activity and imposes a $3.2 million civil penalty, payment of which is suspended due to defendants’ inability to pay. This is the FTC’s third case against VoIP services providers.

The FTC referred this case and the proposed stipulated order to the Department of Justice.  The case was handled by attorneys in the Civil Division’s Consumer Protection Branch, including Trial Attorneys Ellen Bowden McIntyre and Zachary Dietert and Assistant Director Lisa Hsiao, in conjunction with attorneys at the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection/Division of Marketing Practices. 

On May 17, 2021, the Attorney General established the COVID-19 Fraud Enforcement Task Force to marshal the resources of the Department of Justice in partnership with agencies across government to enhance efforts to combat and prevent pandemic-related fraud. Run out of the Office of the Deputy Attorney General, the Task Force bolsters efforts to investigate and prosecute the most culpable domestic and international actors committing civil and criminal fraud and assists agencies tasked with administering relief programs to prevent fraud by, among other methods, augmenting and incorporating existing coordination mechanisms, identifying resources and techniques to uncover fraudulent actors and their schemes and sharing and harnessing information and insights gained from prior enforcement efforts. For more information on the department’s response to the pandemic, please visit https://www.justice.gov/coronavirus.

Anyone with information about allegations of attempted fraud involving COVID-19 can report it by calling the Department of Justice’s National Center for Disaster Fraud (NCDF) Hotline at 866 720 5721 or via the NCDF Web Complaint Form at https://www.justice.gov/disaster-fraud/ncdf-disaster-complaint-form