Month: December 2022

Source: United States Department of Justice News

LAS VEGAS – The Department of Justice has awarded $46,438,846 in grants to various Nevada entities to support victims’ services and public safety efforts, announced United States Attorney Jason M. Frierson.

“These grant awards totaling more than $46 million represent the Justice Department’s commitment to provide the support and resources needed to keep Nevada’s communities safer for all to live and work,” said U.S. Attorney Frierson. “The U.S. Attorney’s Office will work closely with partners throughout the Battle Born State to build safer communities.”

From August to December, Nevada entities were awarded the following grants from the Office of Justice Programs (OJP) and its components:

• Office for Victims of Crime:
  • The Division of Child & Family Services was awarded $2,252,000, as part of the OVC FY 2022 Invited to Apply – Administrative Funding Adjustment to Previously Funded FY2019 VOCA Victim; $2,349,000, as part of the OVC FY 2022 VOCA Victim Compensation Formula Grant; and $13,690,070, as part of the OVC FY 2022 VOCA Victim Assistance Formula Grant.
  • The Inter-Tribal Council of Nevada was awarded $3,766,170, as part of the OVC FY 2022 Invited to Apply Tribal Victim Services Set-Aside Formula Grant Program.
  • Washoe County was awarded $100,000, as part of the OVC FY 2023 Emergency and Transitional Pet Shelter and Housing Assistance Grant Program.
  • The National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges was awarded $1,000,000, as part of the OVC FY 2022 Field-Generated Strategies to Address the Criminalization of Minor Victims of Sex Trafficking.

Total: $23,157,240

• Office of Juvenile Justice Delinquency Prevention:
  • The Division of Child & Family Services was awarded $610,587, as part of the OJJDP FY 2021 Title II Formula Grants Program, and $608,073, as part of the OJJDP FY 2022 Title II Formula Grants Program FY 2022 Title II Grant Solicitation Year 2 of the 3-Year Plan.
  • The National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges was awarded $3,556,559, as part of the OJJDP FY 2022 Invited to Apply – Training and Technical Assistance – Child Abuse Training for Judicial and Court.
  • The Shoshone-Paiute Tribes was awarded $998,788, as part of the OJJDP FY 2022 Enhancing School Capacity to Address Youth Violence.
  • Sunrise Health Clinics LLC was awarded $750,000, as part of the OJJDP FY 2022 Family-Based Alternative Sentencing Program.
  • The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department was awarded $433,341, as part of the OJJDP FY 2022 Invited to Apply – Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Forces.

Total: $6,957,348

• Bureau of Justice Assistance:
  • The City of Las Vegas was awarded $790,681, as part of the BJA FY 22 Swift, Certain, and Fair (SCF) Supervision Program: Applying the Principles Behind Project HOPE.
  • The Walker River Paiute Tribe was awarded $897,205, as part of the U.S. Department of Justice Coordinated Tribal Assistance Solicitation Fiscal year 2022 Competitive Grant.
  • The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department was awarded $771,669, as part of the FY 22 DNA Capacity Enhancement for Backlog Reduction (CEBR) Program (Formula).
  • The Washoe County Sheriff’s Office was awarded $400,000, as part of the FY 22 DNA Capacity Enhancement for Backlog Reduction (CEBR) Program (Formula).
  • The Nevada Department of Public Safety was awarded $21,681, as part of the BJA FY 22 Invited to Apply — Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) Reallocation Funds Program; $235,000, as part of the BJA FY 22 Invited to Apply – Byrne Discretionary Community Project Funding/Byrne Discretionary Grants Program; $2,176,692, as part of the BJA FY 22 Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant Program – State Solicitation; $443,630, as part of the BJA FY 22 Residential Substance Abuse Treatment for State Prisoners Program Formula Grant Solicitation; and $196,253, as part of BJA FY 22 Project Safe Neighborhoods.
  • The City of Henderson was awarded $1,314,350, as part of the BJA FY 22 Comprehensive Opioid, Stimulant, and Substance Abuse Site-based Program.
  • The City of North Las Vegas was awarded $1,300,000, as part of the BJA FY 22 Comprehensive Opioid, Stimulant, and Substance Abuse Site-based Program, and $699,468, as part of the BJA FY 22 Veterans Treatment Court Discretionary Grant Program.
  • Clark County was awarded $749,924, as part of the BJA FY 22 Veterans Treatment Court Discretionary Grant Program.
  • The Fallon Paiute Shoshone Tribes of the Fallon Reservation & Colony was awarded $549,211, as part of the BJA FY 22 Connect and Protect: Law Enforcement Behavioral Health Response Program.
  • The Nevada Department of Education was awarded $1,985,347, as part of the BJA FY 22 Preventing School Violence: BJA’s STOP School Violence Program.

Total: $12,531,111

• National Institute of Justice:
  • The National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges was awarded $2,400,000, as part of the NIJ FY22 National Juvenile Justice Data Analysis Program.

Total: $2,400,000

• Office of Sex Offender Sentencing, Monitoring, Apprehending, Registering, and Tracking:
  • The Nevada Department of Public Safety was awarded $200,000, as part of the SMART FY 2022 Support for Adam Walsh Act Implementation Grant Program.

Total: $200,000

Further, Nevada entities have been awarded the following grants from the Office of Violence Against Women (OVW):

• Washoe Legal Services Inc. was awarded $600,000, as part of Fiscal year 2022 Legal Assistance for Victims (LAV) Grant Program Awards.
• The Nevada Office of Attorney General was awarded $593,147, as part of the 2022 OVW Sexual Assault Services Formula Program Grant Awards.

Total: $1,193,147

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OJP provides federal leadership, grants, training, technical assistance, and other resources to improve the nation’s capacity to prevent and reduce crime, advance racial equity in the administration of justice, assist victims and enhance the rule of law. More information about OJP and its components can be found at: www.ojp.gov.

The Office on Violence Against Women provides federal leadership in developing the national capacity to reduce violence against women and administer justice for and strengthen services to victims of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking. More information about OVW can be found at: www.justice.gov/ovw.

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Source: United States Department of Justice News

A federal court in the Eastern District of Michigan has permanently enjoined two Detroit, Michigan-area tax return preparers and their Detroit-based business from preparing returns for others and from owning or operating any tax return preparation business in the future.

The civil complaint filed in the case alleged that Latavia Garrett, Latrina Hall, and their tax return preparation company, Detroit Tax Solution LLC, prepared fraudulent federal income tax returns. According to the complaint, defendants filed fraudulent federal tax returns that included the following schemes: reporting false income and expenses from fictious businesses; falsely claiming eligibility for child tax credits and education credits; falsely claiming dependents to increase the amount of earned income tax credits; utilizing falsely-reported prior year earned income to make customers eligible for tax credits; underreporting wage income; and, as to defendant Hall, often acting as a “ghost preparer” – that is, failing to sign the tax returns she prepared and failing to identify herself in any way on the returns. As alleged in the complaint, the IRS has conservatively estimated that defendants’ fraudulent return preparation activities have caused a combined loss to the United States for tax years 2019 and 2020 exceeding $1.2 million.

According to the court’s order, defendants consented to entry of the injunction, which permits the United States to conduct post-judgment discovery to monitor compliance. The order requires that defendants (1) send notice of the injunction to each person for whom they and their company prepared federal tax returns, amended tax returns, or claims for refund after January 1, 2019, and (2) post an electronic copy of the injunction on any business social media profile currently maintained or created over the next five years.

Deputy Assistant Attorney General David A. Hubbert of the Justice Department’s Tax Division made the announcement.

Taxpayers seeking a return preparer should remain vigilant against unscrupulous tax preparers. The IRS has information on its website for choosing a tax return preparer and has launched a free directory of federal tax preparers. The IRS also offers 10 tips to avoid tax season fraud and ways to safeguard their personal information.

In the past decade, the Department of Justice Tax Division has obtained injunctions against hundreds of unscrupulous tax preparers. Information about these cases is available on the Justice Department’s website. An alphabetical listing of persons enjoined from preparing returns and promoting tax schemes can be found on this page. If you believe that one of the enjoined persons or businesses may be violating an injunction, please contact the Tax Division with details.

Source: United States Department of Justice News

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – A Kansas City, Mo., man who fired at a gas station clerk was charged in federal court today with illegally possessing a firearm and crack cocaine to distribute.

Reginald Lucas, 59, was charged in a three-count criminal complaint filed in the U.S. District Court in Kansas City, Mo.

Today’s complaint charges Lucas with one count of being a felon in possession of a firearm, one count of possessing crack cocaine with the intent to distribute, and one count of possessing a firearm in furtherance of a drug-trafficking crime.

According to an affidavit filed in support of today’s criminal complaint, Lucas entered agas station near Prospect Avenue and East 35th Street at about 5:15 a.m. on Dec. 28, 2012. Lucas pointed a handgun at the store clerk and threatened him, then moved to the doorway and fired a shot in the direction of the clerk (who was not injured). Lucas fled from the store, got into a red Nissan Altima, and drove away.

Kansas City police officers who were called to the store found a bullet hole in the ceiling above where the clerk had been standing, and recovered a 9mm shell housing on the ground near the door. Gas station surveillance video provided images of Lucas firing the handgun and fleeing in the Altima.

Police officers were returning to the gas station at about 6:11 a.m. the same day when they saw the Altima, being driven by an unidentified woman with Lucas a passenger. Lucas got out of the vehicle and, when he saw the police officers approach, ran away on foot carrying a gray bag. Officers chased Lucas and took him into custody. Officers found a clear baggie of crack cocaine that contained 58 individually wrapped baggies that weighed a total of 20.95 grams and a smaller baggie that contained a total of 2.85 grams of crack cocaine in Lucas’s jacket pocket, and another 4.98 grams of crack cocaine in his pants pocket.

Officers asked Lucas if he had any identification, and he nodded towards the gray bag, which was hanging on a fence. Officers opened the bag and found a loaded CANIK Century Arms 9mm semi-automatic, individually wrapped baggies that contained a total of 92.81 grams of marijuana, and 22 loose prescription pills.

Under federal law, it is illegal for anyone who has been convicted of a felony to be in possession of any firearm or ammunition. Lucas has prior convictions for murder with a deadly weapon and  robbery.

The charges contained in this complaint are simply accusations, and not evidence of guilt. Evidence supporting the charges must be presented to a federal trial jury, whose duty is to determine guilt or innocence.

This case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Sean Foley. It was investigated by the Kansas City, Mo., Police Department and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Project Safe Neighborhoods

This case is part of Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN), a program bringing together all levels of law enforcement and the communities they serve to reduce violent crime and gun violence, and to make our neighborhoods safer for everyone. On May 26, 2021, the Department launched a violent crime reduction strategy strengthening PSN based on these core principles: fostering trust and legitimacy in our communities, supporting community-based organizations that help prevent violence from occurring in the first place, setting focused and strategic enforcement priorities, and measuring the results.

Source: United States Department of Justice News

A Texas woman pleaded guilty today in the Eastern District of Texas for a scheme to embezzle at least $29 million from her employer – a charitable foundation and several other companies run by a Dallas family.

According to court documents, Barbara Chalmers, 74, of Lewisville, admitted that starting in at least 2012, she abused her position as bookkeeper for the family’s companies and her signatory authority over the companies’ bank accounts to fraudulently write herself at least 175 checks, which she deposited into her personal accounts. In order to conceal her fraudulent conduct, she provided false paperwork to tax preparers misstating the year-end cash-on-hand numbers for the various accounts from which she was embezzling. She used more than $25 million of the stolen money to fund a construction business for which she was the president.

Chalmers pleaded guilty to one count of money laundering and faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison at sentencing. A sentencing date has not yet been scheduled. 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 Brit Featherston for the Eastern District of Texas, Assistant Director Luis Quesada of the FBI Criminal Investigative Division, and Acting Special Agent in Charge James J. Dwyer of the FBI Dallas Field Office made the announcement.

The FBI is investigating the case.

Trial Attorneys Vasanth Sridharan and Lucy Jennings of the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Texas are prosecuting the case.

Source: United States Department of Justice News

Jacksonville, Florida – United States Attorney Roger B. Handberg announces that Jonisha M. Williams (36, Jacksonville) has pleaded guilty to stealing deposits from the mail. Williams faces a maximum penalty of five years in federal prison. A sentencing date has not yet been scheduled.

According to the plea agreement, from February 5 to March 4, 2021, Williams worked as a Mail Handler Assistant at the National Distribution Center in Jacksonville. During this time, the United States Postal Service Office of Inspector General received a complaint that Williams was stealing narcotics from the mail and taking them out of the facility. After investigating the complaint, agents captured Williams on video surveillance placing vacuumed sealed bags—similar to how narcotics are packaged—and other mail parcels into her backpack. During an interview with agents, Williams admitted her involvement and that she used her backpack to remove marijuana from the mailing facility.  

This case was investigated by United States Postal Service, Office of Inspector General.  It is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Kirwinn Mike.