Month: January 2023

Source: United States Department of Justice News

An Ohio man was arraigned today on criminal charges related to his alleged false statements to U.S. immigration and law enforcement officials about his military service and involvement in a politically and ethnically-motivated attack on civilians in Croatia during the civil war in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s.

According to the indictment unsealed today, Jugoslav Vidic, 55, of Parma Heights, allegedly made multiple false statements in his successful application to become a lawful permanent resident, including falsely stating that his only past military service was in the Yugoslav Army from 1988 to 1989 and omitting his service in the Serb Army of Krajina and its predecessors from 1991 to 1995. The indictment alleges Vidic falsely stated that he had never been charged with breaking any law even though he had been convicted in absentia in 1998 of a war crime in Croatia, and falsely stated that he had never participated in killing a person because of ethnic origin or political opinion. Vidic also allegedly participated in an attack by ethnic Serb military forces in September 1991 in which Vidic singled out and took away at gunpoint a Croatian civilian who had recently shaken hands with Croatia’s then-president, Franjo Tudjman, who supported Croatian independence from Yugoslavia. The victim was never seen alive again and his body was later exhumed from a mass grave.

Vidic immigrated to the United States as a refugee in 1999. His application to become a lawful permanent resident was approved in 2005. Vidic is also accused of lying to law enforcement agents in 2017 when questioned about his immigration application. Vidic is charged with one count of possessing a green card that was procured by means of materially false statements and one count of making false statements to a federal agent. If convicted, he faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison for the first charge and a maximum penalty of five years in prison for the second.

Assistant Attorney General Kenneth A. Polite, Jr. of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, First Assistant U.S. Attorney Michelle M. Baeppler for the Northern District of Ohio, Assistant Director Luis Quesada of the FBI’s Criminal Investigative Division, Special Agent in Charge Gregory D. Nelsen of the FBI Cleveland Field Office, Acting Executive Associate Director Steve Francis of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), and Special Agent in Charge Angie Salazar of the HSI Detroit Field Office made the announcement.

HSI and the FBI are investigating the case with coordination provided by the Human Rights Violators and War Crimes Center (HRVWCC), including the FBI’s International Human Rights Unit (IHRU). The Department of Justice thanks the Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry of Justice and Public Administration of the Republic of Croatia, which were both instrumental in furthering this investigation.

Trial Attorney Patrick Jasperse of the Criminal Division’s Human Rights and Special Prosecutions Section and Assistant U.S. Attorneys Matthew W. Shepherd and Jerome J. Teresinski for the Northern District of Ohio are prosecuting the case. The Justice Department’s Office of International Affairs also provided assistance.

Members of the public who have information about human rights violators in the United States are urged to contact U.S. law enforcement through the HSI tip line at 1-866-DHS-2-ICE (1-866-347-2423) or its online tip form at https://www.ice.gov/webform/ice-tip-form or the FBI tip line at 1-800-CALLFBI (1-800-225-5324) or its online tip form at https://tips.fbi.gov/.

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

Source: United States Department of Justice News

WASHINGTON – Darrell Taylor, 32, a former officer with the Louisville Metro Department of Correction, in Louisville, Kentucky, was sentenced to 36 months in federal prison for using unreasonable force against a detainee, thereby violating the detainee’s civil rights.

In October 2022, a jury heard evidence proving that the defendant, while working as a correctional officer, assaulted B.R., a pretrial detainee being detained in the Louisville Metro Department of Corrections. On Dec. 15, 2020, Taylor was serving breakfast to detainees in the Louisville Metro Department of Corrections. During the breakfast service, B.R., a detainee with reported mental health issues, used insulting language in a conversation with Taylor, after which Taylor followed B.R. back to B.R.’s bunk, grabbed him, threw him to the ground and punched him repeatedly in the face. After the fourth punch, B.R. went limp and lost consciousness. Taylor then lifted B.R. and slammed him face-first into the ground. B.R.’s jaw and cheekbone were broken during the assault.

“The defendant abused his authority as a law enforcement officer and betrayed the public’s trust when he violently assaulted a detainee in his custody,” said Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “Officials working inside jails and prisons who abuse inmates and detainees are not above the law, and we will continue to vigorously prosecute those who deprive people of their Constitutional rights.”

“The defendant’s violent assault in this case was a blatant disregard of the civil rights and physical well-being of a Metro Department of Corrections’ detainee,” said U.S. Attorney Michael A. Bennett for the Western District of Kentucky. “This office will continue to thoroughly investigate and aggressively prosecute corrections officials who violate the civil rights of individuals through the use of unreasonable force.”

“Corrections officers are tasked with the difficult job of maintaining a safe and secure environment in our prison facilities. When one officer abuses the authority placed in them by violating the civil rights of an inmate, it undermines the trust placed in all law enforcement officers,” said Special Agent in Charge Jodi Cohen of the FBI Louisville Field Office. “This sentence should be a reminder that the FBI takes all allegations of civil rights violations seriously and will vigorously investigate and seek prosecution for these abuses of power.”                         

The FBI Louisville Field Office investigated the case.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Amanda Gregory for the Western District of Kentucky and Trial Attorney Andrew Manns of the Civil Rights Division’s Criminal Section prosecuted the case.

Source: United States Department of Justice News

Remarks as Delivered

Good afternoon. And welcome to Members of Congress, including Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, Attorney General Garland, Associate Attorney General Gupta, all of our esteemed guests. I am honored to join you in celebrating OVC’s tremendous achievements efforts over the past two decades.

Human trafficking is often described as a form of modern-day slavery because of the ways it degrades human dignity, erodes inalienable rights and subjects other human beings to a state of servitude. While slaveholders in the 18th and 19th centuries used whips, chains and physical restraints, contemporary trafficking crimes often rely on invisible schemes of deception, debts, threats and insidious forms of psychological manipulation to bind victims to perpetrators.  Traffickers target people of color, people who are experiencing homelessness or are facing substance abuse. They target those who are experiencing trauma from sexual or physical abuse, young people thrown out of their families for identifying as LGBTQ+. Traffickers manipulate individuals with cognitive disabilities, and they prey on persons with limited English proficiency or little access to education, or those who lack of immigration status, who are often unaware of the laws that protect them.

Since the Civil Rights Division’s founding 65 years ago, enforcing these prohibitions against involuntary servitude have been a cornerstone of our mission as we’ve worked to uphold otherwise elusive Constitutional promises of freedom and equality. And after the passage of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 expanded the statutory prohibitions and the tools available to the department, the division established a dedicated Human Trafficking Prosecution Unit to consolidate specialized anti-trafficking expertise. The unit has since been widely recognized, both nationally and globally, for advancing victim-centered, trauma-informed anti-trafficking strategies and for leading interagency enforcement initiatives to bring high-impact trafficking prosecutions, in partnership with our U.S. Attorneys’ Offices nationwide, in partnership with OVC and with other key anti-trafficking partners throughout the department and beyond. 

Just to underscore the urgency of this important work to bring traffickers to justice, earlier this week, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia sentenced three defendants to serve time in federal prison for conspiracy to commit forced labor for compelling the domestic labor of a Pakistani woman for 12 years. The defendants compelled the victim to serve the family as a domestic servant, using physical and verbal abuse, restricting her communication with her family back in her home country, confiscating her immigration documents, confiscating her money, threatening to separate her from her children by deporting her to Pakistan and more. They slapped, kicked and pushed the victim, even beat her with wooden board, and on one occasion hog-tied her hands and feet and dragged her down the stairs in front of her children. Last week, in an indictment that was unsealed in the Western District of Wisconsin, we charged a Wisconsin man with one count of labor trafficking for using force, threats of force and coercion to cause an adult woman to engage in forced labor for nearly two years.

From the time of OVC’s formation, the division has worked hand-in-hand with OVC and other key partners to seek justice for human trafficking victims. Our work alongside OVC on behalf of trafficking victims and survivors is a natural extension of the division’s core mission of abolishing the legacy of slavery and servitude; upholding the Constitution; and vindicating the rights of the most vulnerable. As we emphasized many years ago when announcing the formation of the Human Trafficking Prosecution Unit,

“Since the inception of the Civil Rights Division, [it] has led the fight against crimes that perpetuate a legacy of slavery and servitude. Whether these crimes took the form of lynchings and cross-burnings by night, or compelled servitude and bondage by day, they all entrenched a legacy of oppression against vulnerable members of our society. Modern-day slavery has taken on new forms … but the struggle remains the same – to vindicate the rights of marginalized members of our society who would otherwise have no voice, and who would otherwise be denied the guarantees of freedom and liberty that form the core of our Constitution.”

Our close collaboration with OVC reflects the recognition that the three pillars of global anti-trafficking efforts — protecting victims, prosecuting perpetrators and preventing proliferation — are inseparable from each other and are all essential to our fight against human trafficking. In order to bring traffickers to justice, we must provide victims the protections they need to safely come forward and speak out against their traffickers. And in order to provide victims and other vulnerable people meaningful protection from trafficking threats, we must not only provide them assistance as they work to reclaim and rebuild their lives; we must also hold the perpetrators accountable for their crimes and dismantle trafficking enterprises so they cannot revert to victimizing others.

To give an example of what such accountability looks like, in December, a federal judge sentenced an Alabama trafficker to 60 years in prison and ordered him to pay almost a million dollars in restitution to five victims in a case prosecuted by the department. The trafficker targeted women struggling with substance abuse issues and preyed upon them by increasing their heroin use. Then the trafficker withheld opioids from the victims to induce extremely painful withdrawal sickness and compel them to engage in commercial sex. He beat the women and threatened to send sexually explicit images of them to their families. At trial, the victims testified courageously against the trafficker. The victims remain in recovery to this today, and they are now on the road to reclaiming their lives – thanks in part to the services and support they received. One now works for the organization that helped her, working to aid other victims. And that is the lasting impact of collaboration.

So, this work requires strong partnerships, and OVC’s work in funding victim service providers and training task force partners has proven vital to identifying, stabilizing and supporting more survivors than ever before. OVC’s efforts, in collaboration with victim service grantees — including some who are here today — are essential to empowering survivors to speak out against their traffickers, often enabling them to testify as witnesses in criminal cases.

In recent years, we’ve also worked closely with OVC to amplify the voices of survivors and incorporate the survivor expertise into our work and into ability to detect, investigate, and prosecute these cases. And we’re grateful for OVC’s role in expanding the ongoing dialogue among survivor-experts, victim specialists and law enforcement as we work to strengthen our collective anti-trafficking work.

We know from experience that this collaboration has made a profound difference on victims’ lives. As one survivor said about the experience of working with the department and when writing her victim impact statement, “I thank God that there were noble people like you guys to see that justice is served and there to help us and value us, and thanks to you, I had the strength to write this statement.”

We’re honored to take a part in this celebration of OVC, its work and its accomplishments over the past two decades and look forward to building on this partnership and continuing the fight in the road ahead as we work to pursue justice for victims and survivors of human trafficking.

Thank you so much.

Source: United States Department of Justice News

Five members and associates of a white supremacist gang were sentenced in Alaska this week to life in prison without the possibility of parole for racketeering, including murder in aid of racketeering, kidnapping, and other offenses.

The person formerly known as Timothy Lobdell, 46, who legally changed his name to “Filthy Fuhrer” (Lobdell); Roy Naughton, aka Thumper, 46; Glen Baldwin, aka Glen Dog, 41; Colter O’Dell, 30; and Craig King, aka Oakie, 57, were convicted at trial of racketeering conspiracy, kidnapping resulting in death, and kidnapping conspiracy on May 2, 2022. Baldwin, O’Dell, and King were each also convicted of murder in aid of racketeering. Lobdell and Naughton were also convicted of an additional two counts each of kidnapping conspiracy, kidnapping, and assault in aid of racketeering.

According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, the defendants were leaders, members, and associates of the 1488s, a violent, prison-based Neo-Nazi gang that operated inside and outside of state prisons throughout Alaska. The 1488s use Nazi-derived symbols to identify themselves and their affiliation with the gang, including a 1488 “patch” tattoo which depicts an Iron Cross superimposed over a swastika. The tattoo can only be awarded to members who gained full membership by committing acts of violence on behalf of the gang. The gang enforced discipline through written rules and a code of conduct, including the boast that “the only currency we recognize is violence and unquestionable loyalty.”

Lobdell founded and led the 1488 gang from inside a state maximum-security prison, where he was serving a 19-year sentence for the attempted murder of an Alaska State Trooper. In addition to directing acts of violence aimed at establishing the gang’s dominance in the prison hierarchy, Lobdell ordered members of the gang to commit violent kidnappings and assaults in the “free world” outside of prison. As part of a plan to impose greater organization and structure among non-incarcerated members, Lobdell insisted on punishing members that he perceived to be defying the 1488 code of conduct, which he believed diminished the power, influence, and reputation of the gang. Lobdell sent out a trusted lieutenant with a list of directives, which culminated in the kidnapping and assault of two lower-level gang members on April 2, 2017, and July 20, 2017, and the kidnapping, assault, and murder of 1488 member Michael Staton on Aug. 3, 2017.

On April 2, 2017, Roy Naughton and other 1488 members, acting at the direction of Lobdell, lured a victim to a gang meeting at Naughton’s residence. Once there, the victim was taken into a basement where he was held at gun point, tied up, and assaulted. As part of the assault, the gang members shattered a lightbulb in his mouth and tattooed him with a racial epithet. The victim was threatened with more violence if the incident was reported to police.

On July 17, 2017, Lobdell called Naughton from prison. During the call, Naughton boasted about the April 2 assault, and reported to Lobdell that another member would be assaulted in the next few days. On July 20, 2017, a second victim was assaulted in a similar manner as the first victim and his 1488 membership “patch,” which is a tattoo, was burned off.

In 2016, Naughton asked for and received permission from Lobdell to impose exceptionally severe discipline on Staton, who had previously stolen from both the 1488s and Craig King, who held himself out as a member of the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club. Naughton, King, Baldwin, and O’Dell worked with other 1488 members to locate, kidnap, and murder Staton. On Aug. 3, 2017, 1488 members, including Baldwin and O’Dell, lured Staton to Wasilla, Alaska, where they beat him and took him to King’s duplex. After arriving, Staton was taken to an empty room, which had been lined with plastic sheeting. Inside the room, King and the 1488s beat and tortured the victim, including cutting off his 1488 tattoo with a knife that had been heated with a propane torch. The co-conspirators wrapped Staton in the plastic and carpeting, and Baldwin and O’Dell drove him to a remote section of Wasilla, where they shot him and set fire to his body. O’Dell was awarded full membership in 1488s for his role in the murder.

Assistant Attorney General Kenneth A. Polite, Jr. of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney S. Lane Tucker for the District of Alaska, Assistant Director Luis Quesada of the FBI’s Criminal Investigative Division, and Special Agent in Charge Anthony Jung of the FBI Anchorage Field Office made the announcement.

The FBI’s Safe Streets Task Force and the Alaska State Troopers, Alaska Bureau of Investigation, investigated the case in conjunction with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Alaska and the Criminal Division’s Organized Crime and Gang Section (OCGS). Investigative assistance was provided by the IRS Criminal Investigation; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; the U.S. Postal Inspection Service; the U.S. Marshals Service; Homeland Security Investigations; Anchorage Police Department; and the State of Alaska’s Department of Corrections.

Trial Attorney Jeremy Franker of the Criminal Division’s OCGS and Assistant U.S. Attorneys William Taylor, James Klugman, and Chris Schroeder for the District of Alaska prosecuted the case.