Source: United States Navy
NEWPORT NEWS, Va. – With the words, “I hereby declare the keel of the United States Ship Enterprise truly and fairly laid,” Olympians Simone Biles and Katie Ledecky chalked their initials on respective steel plates, which were then embossed by skilled welders and affixed to the keel of the future USS Enterprise (CVN 80), Saturday at the HII-Newport News Shipyard (NNS), in Newport News, Va.
Source: United States Navy
Ships from the Iraq Navy, Kuwait Naval Force, Kuwait Coast Guard, U.S. Navy and U.S. Coast Guard participated in maneuvering exercises and maritime security drills.
U.S. ships included patrol coastal ship USS Sirocco (PC 6) and fast response cutter USCGC Charles Moulthrope (WPC 1141). Sirocco and Charles Moulthrope are forward-deployed to Bahrain where U.S. 5th Fleet is headquartered.
“Trilateral engagements like this demonstrate the shared commitment of partner nations to safeguarding the seas,” said Capt. Robert Francis, commander of Task Force 55 whose staff oversees operations for U.S. 5th Fleet surface forces.
Cooperation among regional partners at sea helps ensure maritime security and stability in nearby waters, he added.
The U.S. 5th Fleet operating area includes 21 countries, the Arabian Gulf, Gulf of Oman, Red Sea, parts of the Indian Ocean and three critical choke points at the Strait of Hormuz, Bab al-Mandeb and Suez Canal.
Source: United States Navy
“Reveille, reveille, all hands heave out” is the first word heard over the general announcing system aboard Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Forrest Sherman (DDG 98). Sailors of all ranks and rates get out of their racks and begin the day. Men and women work side-by-side to ensure maintenance, cleaning, operations and planning is optimized to guarantee the continued success of the ship.
Source: United States Department of Justice News
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. – On August 24, 2022, the Honorable Thomas A. Varlan, United States District Judge for the Eastern District of Tennessee, sentenced Kent Lowery Booher, 67, of Harriman, Tennessee, to serve life plus 120 months in federal prison on child exploitation charges.
Booher, a disbarred criminal defense attorney and prior sex offender, was found guilty of child exploitation crimes by a federal jury in April 2021 in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 2422(b), 2260A, 1591(a)(1), (b)(2), and 2251. Booher will also be ordered to pay restitution in an amount to be determined by the court at a later date.
According to the evidence presented at trial, Booher used a telephone, as well as Facebook and other electronic messaging platforms to communicate with an undercover officer that he thought was a 14-year-old girl. Over a five-day period, Booher engaged in sexually explicit communications with an officer that he believed to be minor. Booher arranged to meet the minor in person, at which time Booher was arrested by agents of the 9th Judicial District Attorney’s Office and the Harriman Police Department. Additionally, at trial the jury convicted Booher of charges pertaining to the sexual exploitation of a 15-year-old girl from 2012 to 2013.
“The lengthy sentence given by the Judge displays the gravity of crimes committed against children and the punishments those who commit them will face,” said United States Attorney Francis M. Hamilton III. “It is our duty to protect the most vulnerable in our society.”
The lead agency in this investigation was the 9th Judicial District Attorney’s Office. The Knoxville Police Department, Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, Homeland Security Investigations, Lenoir City Police Department, Loudon County Sheriff’s Office, Harriman Police Department, Blount County Sheriff’s Department, Tennessee Department of Corrections, and U.S. Secret Service, assisted with the investigation.
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Jennifer Kolman and Frank M. Dale, Jr. represented the United States at trial.
This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood (PSC), a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice. Led by U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, PSC marshals federal, state and local resources to better locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims. For more information about PSC, please visit www.projectsafechildhood.gov.
###
Source: United States Department of Justice News
A federal grand jury in Chicago returned an indictment today charging an Illinois doctor with tax evasion, filing false tax returns and assisting in the preparation and filing of false tax returns for his children.
According to the indictment, from 2011 through 2017 Krishnaswami Sriram, of Lake Forest, Illinois, attempted to evade payment of approximately $1.6 million in taxes, penalties and interest he owed to the IRS. Among other evasive acts, Sriram allegedly caused his children to be the nominal owners of two rental properties he owned and operated, while still continuing to receive income from those properties. He also allegedly transferred more than $600,000 from his U.S. bank accounts into bank accounts in India that he controlled.
Sriram allegedly filed false individual income tax returns that did not report his income from the rental properties and did not disclose his ownership interest in the foreign accounts. He also allegedly filed tax returns for his children that falsely reported the income and expenses related to the rental properties. As part of an attempted offer in compromise, Sriram allegedly knowingly submitted false documents to the IRS that omitted some of his assets, including an investment account in the United States, investment and bank accounts in India and multiple rental properties.
If convicted, Sriram faces up to five years in prison for tax evasion, and up to three years for each count of filing a false tax return and aiding in the filing of a false tax return. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.
Acting Deputy Assistant Attorney General Stuart M. Goldberg of the Justice Department’s Tax Division made the announcement. He thanked the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Illinois and the Chicago Healthcare Fraud Strike Force of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division for their substantial assistance in this matter.
IRS-Criminal Investigation, the FBI and the Department of Health and Human Services are investigating the case.
Trial Attorney Sara Henderson of the Justice Department’s Tax Division is prosecuting the case.
An indictment is merely an allegation and all defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.