Month: March 2023

Source: United States Department of Justice News

DEL RIO, Texas – A San Antonio man was sentenced in a federal court in Del Rio today to 78 months in prison for conspiracy to transport illegal aliens resulting in serious bodily injury or placing lives in jeopardy.

According to court documents, Enrique Rodriguez, 21, fled in a pickup truck during an attempted traffic stop by a Dimmit County Sheriff’s deputy.  Driving north on U.S. Highway 83 at speeds over 100 mph, Rodriguez narrowly avoided multiple collisions, including with oncoming law enforcement vehicles, and drove head-on into a guardrail.  The occupants of the vehicle, including six undocumented noncitizens riding in the bed of the truck, were ejected as the truck rolled over.  The responding deputy and U.S. Border Patrol agents observed that the vehicle occupants suffered serious injuries, including likely head trauma, broken legs, severe neck injuries, loss of upward mobility and loss of consciousness. Four of the six undocumented individuals required emergency room treatment.

Rodriguez has remained in federal custody since his arrest on May 19, 2020.  He pleaded guilty on Oct. 20, 2020.  In addition to his prison sentence, Rodriguez was ordered to pay $205,827.97 in restitution.

“This defendant failed to yield for a traffic stop and his numerous reckless decisions that followed resulted in a violent crash,” said U.S. Attorney Jaime Esparza of the Western District of Texas.  “His smuggling victims are very fortunate they survived.  These smuggling attempts pose a very serious threat, not only to those directly involved, but to innocent civilians and our partners as well.”

“Targeting smugglers who prey on human beings is a top priority for HSI,” said Acting Special Agent in Charge Craig Larrabee of the Homeland Security Investigations San Antonio Division. “Human smugglers show a callous disregard for the value of life.  Because of this, we will continue to aggressively pursue these human smugglers who put the lives of others in jeopardy for financial gain.”

HSI, USBP, the Texas Department of Public Safety and the Dimmit County Sheriff’s Office investigated the case.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Joshua Banister prosecuted the case.

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Source: United States Department of Justice News

CINCINNATI – A federal jury convicted former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder, 63, of Glenford, Ohio, and former Ohio Republican Party chair Mathew Borges, 50, of Bexley, Ohio, of participating in a racketeering conspiracy.

“As presented by the trial team, Larry Householder illegally sold the statehouse, and thus he ultimately betrayed the great people of Ohio he was elected to serve,” said U.S. Attorney Kenneth L. Parker. “Matt Borges was a willing co-conspirator, who paid bribe money for insider information to assist Householder. Through its verdict today, the jury reaffirmed that the illegal acts committed by both men will not be tolerated and that they should be held accountable.”

“The FBI’s top criminal priority is investigating public corruption to hold elected officials accountable when they commit illegal acts,” stated FBI Cincinnati Special Agent in Charge J. William Rivers. “I commend the special agents who investigated this historic case, the FBI analysts and staff who provided integral support, and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for their successful prosecution.”

The verdict was announced today following a trial that began on Jan. 23 before Senior U.S. District Judge Timothy S. Black.

The government proved beyond a reasonable doubt at trial that Householder and his enterprise conspired to violate the racketeering statute through honest services wire fraud, receipt of millions of dollars in bribes and money laundering.

The conspiracy involved nearly $61 million in bribes paid to a 501(c)(4) entity to pass and uphold a billion-dollar nuclear plant bailout. 

According to court documents and trial testimony, from March 2017 to March 2020, the enterprise traded millions of dollars in bribery campaign donations in exchange for Householder’s and the enterprise’s help in passing House Bill 6. The defendants then also worked to corruptly ensure that HB 6 went into effect by defeating a ballot initiative to overturn the legislation.

In March 2017, Householder began receiving quarterly $250,000 payments from the related-energy companies into the bank account of his 501(c)(4), Generation Now. Team Householder spent millions of the company’s dollars to support Householder’s political bid to become Speaker, to support House candidates they believed would back Householder, and for their own personal benefit.

The United States detailed that Householder spent more than half a million dollars of the dark money to pay off his credit card balances, repair his Florida home and settle a business lawsuit.

Borges used approximately $366,000 for his personal benefit.

Borges was budgeted $25,000 to bribe an Ohio Republican operative to try to save House Bill 6. Borges gave the man a $15,000 check in exchange for information on the number of signatures collected on the anti-House Bill 6 ballot referendum.

Householder’s longtime campaign and political strategist, Jeffrey Longstreth, and lobbyist Juan Cespedes, both of Columbus, Ohio, previously pleaded guilty to their roles in the racketeering conspiracy. FirstEnergy Corp. signed a deferred prosecution settlement in July 2021, agreeing to pay a $230 million penalty for conspiring to bribe public officials and others.

The racketeering conspiracy as charged in this case is punishable by up to 20 years in prison. Congress sets the maximum statutory sentence. Sentencing of the defendants will be determined by the Court based on the advisory sentencing guidelines and other statutory factors.

Kenneth L. Parker, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio, and J. William Rivers, Special Agent in Charge, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Cincinnati Division, announced today’s verdict. Deputy Criminal Chief Emily N. Glatfelter and Assistant United States Attorneys Matthew C. Singer, Megan Gaffney Painter and Timothy S. Mangan represented the United States in this case.

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Source: United States Department of Justice News

Damian Williams, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced that STEFAN GILLIER, a/k/a “Stephan Gillier,” a/k/a “Stefan R.R. Gillier,” a/k/a “Roland Gillier,” a/k/a “Roland Van Gorp,” was sentenced today in Manhattan federal court by United States District Judge Paul A. Engelmayer to 84 months in prison for engaging in a conspiracy to fraudulently obtain over six million dollars’ worth of aircraft parts.  GILLIER was convicted in September 2022 following a one-week jury trial.

U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said: “With today’s sentence, Stefan Gillier’s aircraft parts fraud scheme has been grounded.  As the sentence for this extradited defendant shows, those who flee justice will be held accountable for their crimes, no matter how long it takes.”   

According to the Indictment, documents previously filed in the case, and evidence introduced at trial:

GILLIER was the president and ran the day-to-day business activities of RTF International Inc. (“RTF”), a broker of aircraft parts.  RTF began obtaining aircraft parts from Honeywell International, Inc. (“Honeywell”) in June 2004.  Starting in 2005, RTF began increasing the number of parts it ordered from Honeywell, paying for them by check.  RTF paid with checks written in foreign currency and for amounts well above the cost of the parts, which created an apparent credit balance in RTF’s favor in Honeywell’s accounting system.  RTF wrote approximately $17 million worth of checks to Honeywell but stopped payment on approximately $15 million worth of checks.

In particular, GILLIER signed checks to Honeywell on behalf of RTF but repeatedly caused stop payment orders to be placed after Honeywell shipped the parts to RTF.  When questioned by Honeywell’s employees about these stop payment orders, GILLIER, using the alias “Roland Van Gorp,” falsely represented that the stop payment orders were the result of a misunderstanding with the bank and that he would check with RTF’s finance department.  In fact, as GILLIER knew, he had issued the stop payment orders, and RTF did not have a finance department. 

In total, GILLIER was able to obtain over $6 million worth of aircraft parts from Honeywell without paying for the parts. 

In June 2006, Honeywell executed a civil attachment order and recovered some of the aircraft parts stolen by GILLIER.  Following the execution of the civil attachment order by Honeywell, GILLIER caused various large transfers of fraud proceeds into bank accounts controlled by him, his relatives, and a co-conspirator (“CC-1”).  The day after making those transfers, on June 15, 2006, GILLIER left the United States for Canada. 

After Honeywell discovered that it was being victimized by RTF, GILLIER and CC-1 continued their fraud scheme through a new corporate entity, “UN Air Services, Inc.” (“UAS”) (which had no relation to the United Nations).  In 2006, UAS began obtaining aircraft parts from Pratt & Whitney Component Solutions, Inc. (“Pratt & Whitney”).  Like RTF, UAS began stopping payment on checks it had written to Pratt & Whitney for the aircraft parts after Pratt & Whitney delivered the aircraft parts to UAS.

GILLIER was arrested and extradited from Italy in 2019.

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In addition to the prison sentence, GILLIER, 49, a citizen of Belgium, was sentenced to three years of supervised release.

Mr. Williams praised the outstanding investigative work of Homeland Security Investigations and the U.S. Department of Defense, Defense Criminal Investigative Service.

The prosecution of this case is being handled by the Office’s Complex Frauds and Cybercrime Unit.  Assistant U.S. Attorneys Dina McLeod, Micah F. Fergenson, and Michael Neff are in charge of the prosecution.

Source: United States Department of Justice News

PROVIDENCE – A Providence man who, with others, fraudulently applied for over $90,000 in pandemic-relief unemployment benefits, and who actually received over $30,000 of those benefits, some of which he boasted that he used to purchase firearms, an iPhone and marijuana, has been sentenced to two years in federal prison, announced United States Attorney Zachary A. Cunha and Rhode Island Attorney General Peter F. Neronha.

According to court documents, Rashaad Hill, 23, who had been employed in both Rhode Island and Massachusetts prior to the start of the pandemic, fraudulently applied for and received $31,540 in pandemic-relief benefits from the states of Arizona and California. Hill and others shared stolen identities – including names, dates of birth, addresses, and Social Security numbers – when filing some fraudulent benefits claims.

According to court filings, Hill used some of his ill-gotten unemployment benefits to purchase, among other things, four firearms, boasting in text messages to his friends, “I got an iPhone and my stimmy went to weed and guns.” 

Hill pleaded guilty on July 27, 2022, to charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud; wire fraud; aggravated identity theft; and theft of government funds. He was sentenced today by U.S. District Court Chief Judge John J. McConnell, Jr., to 24 months of incarceration to be followed by 12 months of supervised release. Hill was ordered to pay restitution in the amount of $34,500.

These matters and other cases of alleged criminal activity related to fraudulent applications for unemployment insurance benefits due to the pandemic are being investigated jointly by the FBI and Rhode Island State Police, with the assistance of the U.S. Department of Labor. Cases are jointly reviewed, charged, and prosecuted by a team of prosecutors to include Assistant U.S. Attorneys Stacey A. Erickson, Denise M. Barton, G. Michael Seaman, and Rhode Island Assistant Attorney General John M. Moreira, chief of the Rhode Island Attorney General’s Public Integrity Unit.

Rhode Islanders who believe their personal identification has been stolen and used to fraudulently obtain unemployment benefits are urged to contact the Rhode Island State Police at financialcrimes@risp.gov or the FBI Providence office at (401) 272-8310.

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, 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.

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Source: United States Department of Justice News

The Justice Department announced today that five more directors resigned from four corporate boards and one company declined to exercise board appointment rights in response to the Antitrust Division’s enforcement efforts around Section 8 of the Clayton Act (Section 8). Section 8, which Congress made a per se violation of the antitrust laws, prohibits directors and officers from serving simultaneously on the boards of competitors, subject to limited exceptions. Today’s announcement brings the number of interlocks unwound or prevented as a result of the division’s recent efforts to at least thirteen directors from ten boards.

“Enforcement of Section 8 will continue to be a focus for the division just as Congress intended,” said Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Kanter of the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division. “We will continue to enforce the antitrust laws when necessary to address illegal board interlocks.”

The following companies and directors unwound interlocks or declined to appoint board members, without admitting liability:

• Qualys, Inc., SumoLogic, Inc., and F5, Inc. – Qualys, SumoLogic, and F5 are providers of cloud security assessments, audit and compliance services, and firewall and monitoring products and services. One director served simultaneously on the boards of all three companies. After the division expressed concerns about the alleged interlock, the director recently resigned from Qualys’s board and declined to stand for reelection to F5’s board.
• N-able, Inc., Dynatrace, Inc., and SolarWinds Corp. – N-able, Dynatrace, and SolarWinds are software companies. Representatives of the investment firm Thoma Bravo sat on all three companies’ boards. As the department previously announced in October 2022, three Thoma Bravo representatives resigned from the SolarWinds’s board in response to the division’s concerns about the alleged interlock between Dynatrace and SolarWinds. Shortly thereafter, in November 2022, two separate Thoma Bravo designees resigned from the N-able board.
• Brookfield Asset Management Inc. and American Equity Investment Life Holding Company (AEL) – AEL and a Brookfield Asset Management subsidiary’s wholly-owned company American National are both insurance companies. Brookfield and/or its subsidiary appointed the officers or directors on the American National board. Additionally, the Brookfield subsidiary has the contractual right to appoint a director to the AEL board, and in December 2022, the Brookfield subsidiary announced that it would exercise that right. After the division raised concerns regarding the potential interlock, the Brookfield subsidiary announced it had changed course and it was withdrawing its proposed nomination to the AEL board.
• Sun Country Airlines Holdings, Inc. and Atlas Air Worldwide Holdings, Inc. – Sun Country and Atlas Air both provide crew, maintenance, and insurance for domestic air freight routes. In August 2022, an investment group led by Apollo Global Management, Inc. proposed acquiring all of Atlas Air’s outstanding shares. At the time, two Apollo-affiliated individuals sat on the Sun Country board of directors. After the division raised concerns regarding a potential interlock arising from Apollo’s proposed acquisition of Atlas Air, the two Apollo-affiliated directors resigned from the Sun Country board.

Anyone with information about potential interlocking directorates or any other potential violations of the antitrust laws is encouraged to contact the Antitrust Division’s Citizen Complaint Center at 1-888-647-3258 or antitrust.complaints@usdoj.gov.