Month: August 2022

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Security News: Three Charged with COVID-19 Relief Fraud Scheme

Source: United States Department of Justice Criminal Division

Three people were arrested today on criminal charges in three separate indictments filed in the District of Idaho. These charges relate to the defendants’ alleged roles in fraudulently obtaining and misusing Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans.

According to court documents, Khadijah Chapman, 58, of Atlanta; Daniel Labrum, 41, of South Jordan, Utah; and Eric O’Neil, 57, of Bethel, Connecticut, are charged with fraudulently obtaining PPP loans for fictitious businesses in 2021. The defendants, along with others, allegedly falsified information and submitted fraudulent documents to collectively obtain over $2.4 million in relief funding guaranteed by the Small Business Administration (SBA) under the Coronavirus Relief, Aid, and Economic Security (CARES) Act for small businesses struggling with the economic impact of COVID-19. 

Chapman and O’Neil are each charged with one count of bank fraud, and Labrum is charged with five counts of bank fraud and one count of engaging in monetary transactions with criminally derived proceeds for their roles in the scheme. If convicted, Chapman, Labrum, and O’Neil each face a maximum penalty of 30 years in prison for each count of bank fraud. Labrum additionally faces a maximum of 10 years in prison for engaging in monetary transactions with criminally derived proceeds. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.

Assistant Attorney General Kenneth A. Polite, Jr. of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division; U.S. Attorney Joshua D. Hurwit for the District of Idaho; Assistant Director Luis Quesada of the FBI’s Criminal Investigation Division; Special Agent in Charge Stephen Belongia of the FBI’s Buffalo Field Office; Special Agent in Charge Thomas Fattorusso of the IRS Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI); and Inspector in Charge Ketty Larco-Ward of the United States Postal Inspection Service (USPIS) made the announcement. 

The FBI, IRS-CI, and USPIS are investigating the case.

Trial Attorneys Jennifer Bilinkas and Tamara Livshiz of the Justice Department’s Fraud Section and Assistant U.S. Attorney Sean Mazorol for the District of Idaho are prosecuting the case.

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. The Task Force bolsters efforts to investigate and prosecute the most culpable domestic and international criminal actors and assists agencies tasked with administering relief programs to prevent fraud by 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.

An indictment is merely an allegation. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.

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Security News: California Man Pleads Guilty to Possession of Cocaine with Intent to Distribute

Source: United States Department of Justice News

Gulfport, Miss.  — A Lemon Grove, California man pled guilty to possession of cocaine with intent to distribute, announced U.S. Attorney Darren J. LaMarca and Special Agent in Charge Jermicha Fomby of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

According to court documents, on October 8, 2021, Albert Joseph Jones, 31, was stopped by an agent with the South Mississippi Metro Enforcement Team for a traffic violation. Jones was the driver and sole occupant of the vehicle. A K-9 hit on the vehicle for the presence of narcotics. A search of the vehicle produced eighteen (18) heat-sealed packages of cocaine. 

Jones is scheduled to be sentenced on November 16, 2022, at 1:30 p.m., in Gulfport. He faces a maximum penalty of 40 years in prison and a $5,000,000 fine. A federal district judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.

The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and its FBI Task Force, and the South Mississippi Metro Enforcement Team.  It is prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrea Jones.

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Security News: St. Louis woman sentenced to 27 months in prison for arson attempts during protests

Source: United States Department of Justice News

ST. LOUIS – U.S. District Judge Stephen R. Clark on Tuesday sentenced a woman who tried to set fires at a St. Louis 7-Eleven during a 2020 protest to 27 months in prison.

On June 1, 2020, Nautica Turner took lighter fluid and began to pour it on the 7-Eleven located at 201 N. 17th Street in St. Louis as the store was being looted by numerous individuals, Turner admitted in a plea agreement in February.

After a man showed Turner a better technique for pouring the lighter fluid, she took the container back and continued trying to set the building on fire.

The man, Justin Cannamore, later set a fire in an aisle of the store, which was soon extinguished when a firework exploded in the same location. Turner took a thin cardboard box and unsuccessfully tried to restart the fire, before trying and failing to light a fire in a concrete trashcan outside the store, her plea agreement says.

A fire started by someone else later burned the store to the ground.

The looting came amid protests over the May 25, 2020 killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Turner, now 27, pleaded guilty to a felony charge of conspiracy to commit arson.

Cannamore, of St. Louis County, was sentenced to three years in prison in September.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation with assistance from the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearm and Explosives investigated the case. Assistant U.S. Attorney John Ware prosecuted the case.

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Defense News: FRCSE snags CNO’s Aviation Safety Award

Source: United States Navy

During fiscal year 2021 alone, the team hit a historical landmark by delivering 106 aircraft safely back to the Fleet while conducting a total of 319 flights, encompassing 580 flight hours of mishap-free flying.

These advances in aviation safety don’t go unnoticed. Efforts like these and dozens of others earned FRCSE the 2021 Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) Aviation Safety Award, a coveted annual recognition that’s awarded for outstanding strides in professionalism, commitment to excellence, leadership and teamwork – collectively resulting in mission and operational readiness. The depot has earned this award 15 times since the late 1990s.

FRCSE is Northeast Florida and Southeast Georgia’s largest maintenance, repair, overhaul and technical services provider, providing four of every ten jobs in Jacksonville’s manufacturing arena. It conducts work on aircraft like the T-6 Texan, T-44 Pegasus, H-60 Sea Hawk, F-5N Tiger II, F/ A-18 Hornet and more. Each specialized, training or tactical aircraft that undergoes maintenance at the command requires ground checks and functional check flights (FCF) before it returns to the Fleet. These checks ensure each aircraft is safe for flight.

“Reaching almost 34,000 flight hours of Class A/B mishap-free flying takes significant work, dedication, and extreme attention to detail from every member of our workforce,” said FRCSE’s Commanding Officer Capt. Grady Duffey. “The entire command takes immense pride in ensuring the warfighter always has the highest quality product and does so by putting our aircraft through an extensive series of tests to establish safety assurances and component reliability. We pride ourselves on safety, and it’s just another level of excellence that has come to be expected from FRCSE.” 

The test flight process has zero room for hiccups, which is apparent through FRCSE’s impressive safety track record – 54 years of mishap-free flying. 

“We’re able to perform safely because our team at all phases operates in a way that allows us to do so,” said Lt. Cmdr. Matthew Fields, FRCSE’s Aviation Safety Officer. “A single artisan has the potential to have a huge impact on an aircraft’s ability to operate safely. Every employee at FRC Southeast accepts that ownership, allowing us to do what we do.”

Once maintenance work has been completed on the production floor, the aircraft transfers to ground check, but not without a series of meetings that verify every t is crossed and i is dotted. Dozens of eyes review checklists and logbooks to confirm the bird is ready for transfer. 

Ground checks are precisely as they sound – they verify that the aircraft is safe and ready for flight testing. Ground checks take a magnifying glass to every part of the aircraft. While most of the time, this process takes only a few days, occasionally, the pros will discover a new issue that hasn’t been documented on the aircraft before. 

“We have specifically trained personnel known as Aviation Systems Inspectors (ASI) that are qualified to check various systems such as engine run parameters, avionics, flight controls, environmental control systems (ECS), communication and navigation systems,” said Chad Cox, FRCSE’s flight test director. “They also service the aircraft tires, struts, hydraulic systems, and oil and oxygen systems. These aircraft go through a full workup of tests before being considered safe for flight.”

But ground check safety isn’t complete without additional oversight from the plant’s ordnance and a parachute riggers division whose primary function is to check things like the aircraft’s ejection seat, canopy fracture system, as well as things like oxygen masks, survival kits, life rafts and other systems that are essential for a pilot’s safety. 

After an aircraft has cleared initial testing, the command’s Maintenance Control shop and QA go back through the paperwork. Everything associated with the aircraft, including each component’s operational limits, scheduled inspections and even logbooks that track flight hours, are verified and checked for accuracy before scheduling the aircraft off for an FCF. 

Once the FCF date arrives, there is additional paperwork that needs to be checked, and one of six FRCSE test pilots, trained in multiple aircraft, walks through a visual inspection of the bird on deck. 

Various system functionalities are checked, such as avionics calibration, weight, the aircraft’s balance, possible foreign object debris and life support equipment. 

Finally, after the aircraft has passed all phases, it’s time to cut through the clouds. 

“The vast majority of our flying is FCF and deliveries,” said Fields. “Occasionally, we may fly for pilot proficiency or training, but it typically coincides with a confidence flight. The second flight ensures the consumer gets the best product because we can double-check proper functionality.”

To the spectator on the ground, it might just look like a glittering piece of metal in the air, but to the folks at FRCSE, it’s a beacon of the hard work they’re happy to labor for because, to them, nothing is more vital than ensuring every military pilot has a piece of machinery that is flight worthy. 

“We can certainly take this moment to reflect on the excitement that comes with earning an award of this caliber, but we will continue to forge forward into the future by readjusting our sails and evolving our safety measures to exceed the Fleet’s needs,” said Captain Duffey.

About Fleet Readiness Center Southeast 

Fleet Readiness Center Southeast (FRCSE) is Northeast Florida and Southeast Georgia’s largest maintenance, repair, overhaul and technical services provider, employing approximately 5,000 civilian, military and contract workers. With annual revenue exceeding $1 billion, the organization serves as an integral part of the greater U.S. Navy, Naval Air Systems Command, and Commander, Fleet Readiness Centers by maintaining the combat airpower for America’s military forces. 

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Security News: Husband & wife sentenced to 60 years & 20 years in prison for sexual exploitation, child pornography crimes

Source: United States Department of Justice News

COLUMBUS, Ohio – A Bexley, Ohio, couple were sentenced in federal court last evening for their crimes related to the sexual abuse of minor children.

Stephen Wilson, 39, was sentenced to 720 months in prison for the sexual exploitation of minors, and Jessica Wilson, 38, was sentenced to 240 months in prison for distributing and receiving child pornography.

Their crimes included creating child pornography videos and pictures of sexual abuse while exchanging text messages discussing the abuse.

According to court documents, from 2016 until 2021, Stephen Wilson sexually abused at least three minors between the ages of 7 and 16. Stephen had video cameras inside his home, including his bedroom, and used those cameras to document and create videos and still images of the abuse. He also filmed and photographed the sexual assault of the minor children with his cell phone.

In one incident, Stephen drugged a minor victim with alcohol and ecstasy and raped the victim while she was semi-conscious-to-unconscious. He created a 22-minute video depicting that sexual assault. In another incident, Stephen used a handheld camera to film his penis near the face of a seven-year-old child while he showed the minor adult pornography of himself and Jessica Wilson. 

Stephen created hundreds of still images from the videos of him sexually assaulting minors. He also possessed hundreds of child pornography images depicting the abuse of children as young as toddler age. Additionally, Stephen possessed at least 25 images in which he had photoshopped his genitalia onto images of minor children, including prepubescent and toddler aged females, to give the effect of those children engaging in sexual activity with him.

Jessica was present for or aware of the sexual assaults that were perpetrated by Stephen. She and Stephen continued to engage in conversations about the sexual assaults of the minor children, exchanging still images of the videos that Stephen had created and fantasizing about them together.

On several occasions, Jessica exchanged numerous files of child pornography with Stephen, discussing those files at length in text conversations and even seeking advice from Stephen on where she could access child pornography online. Thousands of text messages were recovered between the two of them, during which, the Wilsons exchanged pornographic images of victims as young as one to eight months old.

Stephen and Jessica Wilson were both arrested locally in January 2021. A federal grand jury indicted the defendants in April 2021. 

Kenneth L. Parker, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio; J. William Rivers, Special Agent in Charge, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Cincinnati Division; and Bexley Police Chief Gary D. Lewis, Jr. announced the sentences imposed by Chief U.S. District Court Judge Algenon L. Marbley. Assistant United States Attorney Emily Czerniejewski and Senior Litigation Counsel Heather A. Hill are representing the United States in this case.

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