Month: March 2023

Source: United States Department of Justice News

Remarks as Delivered

Thank you, Senator. Before I begin, I do want to express my condolences to the families and loved ones of the victims in Nashville for this horrific school shooting. I also want to express my condolences specifically to Senator Hagerty, who is on this Subcommittee, and I know flew back to Nashville to be with the community at the time. We have both ATF and FBI resources working hand-in-hand with the state and local police right now, and they will continue to do so as long as is necessary. And the Justice Department will do everything that we have within our power to try to prevent these kinds of really horrific shootings.

With that said, I want to thank the Chairman, the Ranking Member, and distinguished Members of the Subcommittee for the opportunity to speak with you today. This is for our funding request for Fiscal Year 2024.

Every day, the Justice Department works to keep our country safe from all threats, foreign and domestic.

We work to protect the civil rights of everyone in the country.

And every day, in everything we do, we work to uphold the rule of law that is the foundation of our system of government.

The Justice Department’s budget request seeks the resources we need to continue and to build on that work.

To help keep our country safe, we are asking for more than $21.3 billion to sustain and expand the capacities of the FBI, DEA, ATF, U.S. Marshals Service, and of our 94 U.S. Attorneys’ Offices. 

These resources will help protect communities across the country. They will strengthen our efforts to counter threats posed by hostile nation-states – specifically the governments of the People’s Republic of China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea. They will enable us to counter foreign and domestic terrorism. And they will sustain and expand our whole-of-Department approach to combating violent crime, the epidemic of gun violence, and the scourge of drug trafficking.

The Department is also seeking $2.7 billion for our Office of Community Oriented Policing Services – our COPS Office – Hiring Program. This funding will enable us to help our state and local law enforcement agency partners hire more full-time law enforcement professionals.

As part of our efforts to disrupt drug trafficking, our budget requests $3.3 billion for DEA’s investigations, diversion control, and counterdrug efforts across 241 domestic offices and 92 offices in 69 countries around the world.

The Department is focused on getting fentanyl out of our communities and combating the violent cartels that are putting it there. Just last week, DEA issued an alert warning about the emerging threat posed by the deadly combination of fentanyl and xylazine, which increases the risk of fatal drug poisoning.

We also know that addressing the proliferation of deadly drugs requires more than just enforcement actions. So, we are requesting more than $646 million for grants to help address the drug overdose epidemic and the public health challenges of addiction and drug use.

The Department’s budget also requests significant investments in our efforts to combat economic crimes; protect the health, safety, and financial security of American consumers; and safeguard competition.

This includes a $770 million request for our U.S. Attorneys’ Offices to pursue investigations and prosecutions of complex economic crimes. These include COVID-19 pandemic fraud schemes that have exploited the pandemic and stolen millions of taxpayer dollars.

Protecting civil rights was a founding purpose of the Justice Department in 1870, and it remains our urgent charge today. 

The Department’s budget requests significant investments to advance that work. This includes our efforts to protect voting rights, combat hate crimes, foster trust and accountability in law enforcement, defend federally protected reproductive rights, advance environmental justice, and tackle the climate crisis. 

Specifically, we are requesting a total of $251.6 million for the Civil Rights Division – an increase of more than 32% – to carry out its important mission. We are also requesting $127.6 million to support the FBI’s investigations of civil rights violations.

Administering just and efficient immigration court and correctional systems is another important area of Departmental focus for which we are requesting additional resources. 

We are requesting $1.46 billion – a 69.2% increase – for the Executive Office for Immigration Review to hire nearly 1,000 new staff. This includes 150 new immigration judges. These resources will support our efforts to apply the immigration laws justly and efficiently.

We are also seeking $8.82 billion in funding for the Bureau of Prisons. These resources will help ensure the health, safety, and wellbeing of correctional staff and incarcerated individuals. They will help ensure transparency, accountability, and effective oversight of all federal prisons and detention centers. And they will enable the Department to fully implement the provisions of the First Step Act and increase programming to prepare individuals in federal prisons for successful reentry.

I am extremely proud of the work the Department’s employees are doing to uphold the rule of law, to keep our country safe, and to protect civil rights. I respectfully ask for your support for the President’s FY 2024 budget request so that we may continue and build upon that request.

Thank you.

Source: United States Department of Justice News

Remarks as Prepared for Delivery

Thank you Ro for that kind introduction.

On behalf of the Department of Justice, I am pleased to welcome you to this event on advancing people-centered justice, the rule of law and democracy. A huge thank you to our colleagues at USAID for organizing this event. It is a pleasure and honor to be here with Deputy Administrator Isobel Coleman, our esteemed panelists, and Maha Jweied, who paved the way as a former leader of the Office for Access to Justice.

Thank you to the Dominican Republic and Kosovo for heading the Summit for Democracy Cohort on People Centered-Justice and Ambassador Guzmán who was with us earlier today.  As my father was born in Santo Domingo and I’m headed there next week to see family, it is so inspiring to see your leadership on access to justice issues.

The Office for Access to Justice works to ensure that all communities have access to the promises and protections of our legal systems and government—that justice does not depend on your income, age, gender, status, identity, ability or the language you speak.

Our office serves as the central authority on access to justice before international organizations, including the United Nations and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. We also lead the U.S. government’s effort to implement UN Sustainable Development Goal 16 on promoting peaceful and inclusive societies, ensuring equal access to justice for all, and building transparent institutions.

So what does it mean to pursue the rule of law and to strengthen democracy through people-centered justice?

Respect for the rule of law is a fundamental pillar to ensure strong democracies around the world. It bounds democracies together by universal principles of due process, fairness, dignity, and equality. But when communities do not equally experience the protections promised by government and our laws, it creates a lack of trust and erodes the strength of the rule of law. It also undermines our collective safety and security.

A people-centered approach starts with humility, and an acknowledgement that these structural inequities exist. Indeed, our legal systems have failed too many people. And it requires consistent centering of the voices of the people, particularly the voices of historically underserved and marginalized communities.

For example, in the U.S., some studies have shown that up to 55% of people who come into contact with the criminal justice system end up back in the system again. In developing policy solutions to reduce this cycle, the Office for Access to Justice worked with people who had previously been incarcerated to host a reentry simulation for officials from across the U.S. government.

This simulation allowed government leadership to better understand the complex barriers faced by people who have a criminal conviction, including in obtaining employment and education and in accessing basic needs like housing, healthcare and food security, hurdles that frequently cycle people back into the criminal justice system.

Our office also prioritized people centered approaches through the White House Legal Aid Interagency Roundtable. We direct and staff the Roundtable – a collaboration of 28 U.S. federal agencies to pursue access to justice across government, co-chaired by Attorney General Garland and White House Counsel Stuart Delery. The Roundtable just last week released our 2022 report focused on the simplification of government forms, processes, and language so that all people can more easily access federal resources. Most importantly, the report creates a roadmap to simplifying access that starts with understanding community experiences, needs and barriers, and then proposes the development of simplification efforts directly informed by that feedback.

And most recently, the Department of Justice celebrated 60 years since the U.S. Supreme Court decision recognizing the right to counsel in criminal cases, Gideon v. Wainwright, by launching a country-wide tour to hear from those on the ground doing the work of making that right a reality. High-level Justice Department officials joined me in visits with public defenders, impacted communities and advocates across the United States, from urban cities, to southern, midwestern, tribal and rural areas. We heard about barriers to ensuring effective access to legal aid and announced a number of actions in response.

When we trust the experiences of the communities we serve, solicit their ideas and carefully tailor responsive strategies, we can form honest and empowering partnerships and invest together in lasting solutions. And this builds trust in government, confidence in the rule of law, and more resilient democratic governance.

We know that much more must be done to expand people-centered justice. And we welcome opportunities to learn from our global partners, because we frequently face the same challenges. To further our collaboration with like-minded partners in pursuit of these goals, we are pleased that the United States will join the Justice Action Coalition, which is a group of like-minded governments and partners working together to champion equal access to justice for all. The Department of Justice will support membership of the United States in the Coalition, including by offering U.S. best practices and engagement with partners.

I also look forward to traveling soon to Ghana with the Justice Department’s Office of Overseas Prosecutorial Development Assistance and Training to learn more about U.S. assistance to Ghana’s Legal Aid Commission. We will use this visit to consider additional types of support for — and partnership — with Ghana to examine legal defense issues globally.

Our continued work in this area requires collaboration from the many stakeholders with us today. In sharing the examples I’ve highlighted, I hope we can inspire further change and learn from others.

This sentiment was echoed in President Biden’s 2022 National Security Strategy, which states, “Our democracy is a work in progress—and by reckoning with and remedying our own shortcomings, we can inspire others around the world to do the same.” We all have a stake in transforming our society and building fairer and more just democracies here at home and abroad.

Thank you again for this opportunity to join you. Now, I’m happy to welcome Deputy Administrator Colemen.  

Source: United States Department of Justice News

Remarks as Delivered

Good morning and thank you, First Assistant Gorman. While the Justice Department is opening new pattern or practice investigations into police departments across the country, we are also achieving significant progress in cities that have worked for years to institute reforms that are called for by our consent decrees. I am here today to recognize the significant steps the City of Seattle and the Seattle Police Department (SPD) have taken to ensure constitutional policing. They have reached and sustained compliance with our consent decree by consistently implementing reforms necessary to change policing in this city. As a result, Seattle stands as a model for the kind of change and reform that can be achieved when communities, police departments and cities come together to repair and address systemic misconduct.

Today, the Justice Department and Seattle, in recognition of these achievements, are filing a joint motion seeking to end the long-standing consent decree that has been in place. This would be replaced with a new agreement that addresses the need for compliance in two final remaining areas – officer accountability and police crowd control tactics. We will work closely with the city and the public on these final areas. But the overall message today is that policing in Seattle looks dramatically different today than it did ten years ago. The consent decree in Seattle has provided the strong medicine necessary to cure the problems and improve the way policing is carried out across the City of Seattle. Over the last 11 years, policing has changed significantly. And we are confident that the systems the city has built, including robust community oversight, will ensure that policing in Seattle continues to improve in the road ahead.

How did we get here? Under the Consent Decree, the city and the police department have implemented new and revised policies and developed and improved training to protect the civil rights of the people of Seattle. Structural changes that improved the police department’s ability to monitor and correct itself, including the creation of a Force Investigation Team to investigate all serious uses of force, have been effectively implemented. And to foster a greater partnership between the police department and the community, the city has established a Community Police Commission to incorporate and build on community members’ ideas and experiences.

The consent decree was established in 2012 as a result of the Justice Department’s 2011 report finding that the Seattle Police Department had engaged in a pattern and practice of police misconduct. In a little over a decade, the Seattle Police Department has made great strides and reformed its policies and practices significantly. The consent decree has produced real and tangible change: 

• In 2011 we found widespread uses of unnecessary and excessive force. Today, the use of force has become rare. SPD officers now use force in fewer than one-quarter of 1% of all events to which they respond. SPD has reduced the use of serious force by 60%.
• In 2011 we found that officers escalated situations unnecessarily, particularly during encounters with people with mental illness. Since then, the police department has developed an advanced crisis intervention program to respond to people who are experiencing a mental health crisis. Use of force in crisis incidents now occurs in less than 2% of such incidents and the majority of force used – 65%– is low-level force.
• In 2011 we raised serious concerns about the police department’s practices regarding pedestrian stops and detentions. Today, the police department’s stops and detentions consistently comply with legal and policy requirements – in its most recent assessment, the court monitor has found that more than 90% of police stops are supported by reasonable, articulable suspicion.
• The police department has also adopted a bias-free policing policy. It requires the police department to analyze its practices – including stops, searches and arrests – to identify those that have a disparate impact on Black, Latino, AAPI, native and other communities of color.

I want to be clear – while challenges remain, the very significant progress that I have described could not have been achieved without the reforms called for by our consent decree, the work of the independent monitor, court oversight, the actions undertaken by the police department and the partnership and faith that the community has brought to this process at every stage. It is this measurable progress that forms the basis for our joint request to terminate the long-standing consent decree in Seattle. As the court monitor’s reports have consistently found, through its diligent efforts the city has sustained compliance with significant portions of the consent decree since early 2018. And this is what the consent decree demands: the city must show that, not only can it achieve compliance with the protections of constitutional rights required by the decree, but that it can also sustain this compliance over time to ensure that constitutional rights will be protected in the future. For the vast majority of the consent decree, the city and the police department have met these requirements. They have also committed to continuing to measure whether these reforms remain effective, demonstrating their commitment to being an agency that can engage in critical self-analysis and continue the ongoing process of reform. We believe now is the time to recommend to the court that the city be relieved from the specific requirements of the consent decree in all of these areas of sustained compliance. 

Two key areas would remain under the court’s oversight. The first area is the use of force in crowd management settings, such as large protests and demonstrations. The city continues to complete its review and implement reforms related to use of force during the protests in the summer of 2020, and that work must be completed before it’s appropriate to end court oversight on that issue. The second is accountability – the systems that ensure that police officers are held accountable when if and when they violate SPD’s policies and the law. In 2019, the court found that the city was out of compliance with the consent decree in this area, and the court monitor must conclude its assessment of the city’s work to address those concerns. We are committed to working with the city and the court monitor to ensure that these remaining areas are fully addressed.

But, moving forward, the city, the police department and the community will have to work together to ensure that policing both keeps people safe and respects their civil and constitutional rights. The gains the city and the police department have made must be vigilantly guarded and carried into the future, and we are confident that the systems established through the consent decree will make positive and lasting change possible.

And while much has been achieved here in Seattle, we know that the work of reform must continue. Indeed, it is Seattle’s recognition of the ongoing nature of reform and its commitment to doing the necessary work that gives us confidence that we can take this step today. 

We’re seeing similar results in consent decrees across the country. The work in those cities is still ongoing, but the progress that we’ve accomplished in Seattle truly provides a model for what we can accomplish in other communities as we vigorously pursue such reforms. Two weeks ago, I was in Louisville, Kentucky, where I announced the findings from a similar investigation of the police department in that city. We are already working with the city to address the issues through a court-enforceable consent decree with the oversight of a court monitor. We’re also investigating the Minneapolis Police Department, Phoenix Police Department, Louisiana State Police and New York City Police Department, among others.

The results of the consent decree here in Seattle show these efforts can be effective, that constitutional and effective policing hand in hand. Today is not an endpoint, but a new beginning – a beginning of the next chapter of reform here in Seattle. As Dr. Martin Luther King said: “Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle.” The next chapter will require continuous struggle to ensure that change does roll in, to ensure that the constitutional rights of everyone in Seattle are protected, particularly among those most vulnerable. We look forward to our role in this next chapter of reform.

To all of the members of the Seattle community, I acknowledge your engagement and hard work and effort, which helped bring us to this milestone today. I know that this transition agreement doesn’t signal an end to those robust efforts and that more progress can be made toward an even more effective and fair community policing process here in Seattle.

In conclusion, I want to acknowledge the U.S. Attorney’s Office, which has been a strong partner with the Civil Rights Division since the inception of our work in Seattle and throughout the consent decree process. I also want to acknowledge Mayor Bruce Harrell, City Council President Debora Juarez and the other city Councilmembers here today and Chief of Police Adrian Diaz – thank you for joining with us. Thank you for standing with us. We are also joined by community leaders and concerned citizens who have been a central part of this process from the beginning and have been important voices in the process of reform. I also want to recognize the Seattle Police Department, from the rank and file all the way up to command staff – their compliance with the consent decree over the years has contributed to its ultimate success.

I want to now invite to the podium Mayor Bruce Harrell.

Source: United States Department of Justice News

A federal jury found a Florida man guilty of failing to file a Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts (FBAR), making a false statement to the IRS, and willfully failing to file tax returns. 

According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, from 2005 to 2015, Mark Anthony Gyetvay of Naples, Florida, concealed his ownership and control over substantial offshore assets and failed to file and pay taxes on millions of dollars of income. After working as a certified public accountant (CPA) in the United States and Russia, Gyetvay became the chief financial officer of Novatek, a large Russian gas company. Beginning in 2005, Gyetvay opened two different accounts at a bank in Switzerland to hold substantial assets, which at one point had an aggregate value of over $93,000,000. Over a period of several years, Gyetvay took steps to conceal his ownership and control over these funds, including removing himself from the accounts and making his then-wife, a Russian citizen, the beneficial owner of the accounts. Additionally, despite being a CPA, Gyetvay did not file his 2013 and 2014 U.S. tax returns.

Gyetvay did not file FBARs, as required, to disclose his control over the Swiss bank accounts, at times, rejecting his accountant’s recommendation to do so. In an unsuccessful attempt to avoid significant financial penalties, Gyetvay made a false filing with the IRS using the Streamlined Foreign Offshore Procedures, available only to taxpayers whose failure to report offshore assets and income is due to non-willful conduct.

He is scheduled to be sentenced on September 21, 2023, and faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison for failing to file an FBAR, five years in prison for making a false statement and one year in prison for each willful failure to file a 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.

IRS-Criminal Investigation is investigating the case.

Senior Litigation Counsel Stanley Okula, Assistant Chief David Zisserson and Trial Attorney Kevin Schneider of the Justice Department’s Tax Division are prosecuting the case.

Source: United States Department of Justice News

Damian Williams, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced that FRANKLIN RAY pled guilty today to four counts of wire fraud, including one count of wire fraud while released under conditions of bail, and one count of aggravated identity theft in connection with various fraud schemes relating to his operation of a trucking business known as CSA Business Solutions LLC and another Michigan-based trucking company.  RAY, who was previously convicted of wire fraud and bank fraud in the Eastern District of Michigan and was released from prison in 2010, pled guilty before United States District Judge Analisa Torres.

U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said: “As he admitted in court today, between June 2020 and April 2022, Franklin Ray engaged in four separate fraudulent schemes by lying about the business operations of his purported trucking companies, including two separate PPP frauds and a $40 million Ponzi scheme.  Ray continued his crime spree even after he was arrested by federal authorities in March 2022, brazenly defrauding investors in his fake trucking company of nearly $2 million while he was on bail following his arrest.  Thanks to the hard work of the FBI and this Office, he is being held accountable for his serial fraudulent conduct.”

As alleged in the previously filed Complaint and Indictment and other court documents:

Beginning in at least June 2021, FRANKLIN RAY began to offer investors an opportunity to invest in his trucking and logistics company, CSA Business Solutions LLC (the “Truck Investment Scheme”).  Specifically, RAY and the investors entered into contracts pursuant to which CSA Business Solutions LLC would procure and operate a truck in its trucking business for each $20,000 contributed by the investor.  RAY told investors that the trucks would perform delivery services for a multinational e-commerce company and/or a multinational shipping company and that the investors would be entitled to 77% of the net income of the trucks.  In reality, CSA Business Solutions LLC operated few trucks and had minimal revenues from trucking activities.  Instead, investors in the Truck Investment Scheme received payments from new investments into the scheme or from other sources.  After the investors purchased the rights to trucks from CSA Business Solutions LLC, RAY sent them falsified spreadsheets at regular intervals, purporting to show the performance of their trucks during the relevant period.  RAY ultimately induced approximately 275 investors to invest at least $40 million and fraudulently claimed to have purchased over 2,000 trucks with the investments.

RAY also pled guilty to carrying out fraudulent schemes to obtain over $1.9 million in government-guaranteed loans designed to provide relief to small businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic on behalf of CSA Business Solutions LLC and another Michigan-based trucking company (the “SBA Loan Fraud Schemes”).  In connection with the SBA Loan Fraud Schemes, RAY submitted false information and forged documents to the Small Business Administration and commercial lenders.  RAY claimed that these businesses engaged in significant trucking business, but they had minimal revenues and trucking activity.

Finally, RAY pled guilty to fraudulently inducing a New York City-based real estate company (the “Company”) to pay $175,000 in startup costs for a joint venture (the “Join Venture”) between the Company and CSA Business Solutions LLC.  RAY misrepresented CSA Business Solutions LLC and his own personal business experience to the Company.  Rather than pay for startup costs, RAY spent the funds on personal expenses, including private airplane trips.  The Joint Venture was never formed.

RAY was arrested in early March 2022, and a CSA Business Solutions LLC bank account was seized at that time.  After his arrest, up until his Indictment in April 2022, RAY continued to operate the Truck Investment Scheme.  RAY hid the fact of his arrest and the seizure of the bank account and lied to investors about why he did not make expected payments after his arrest.  During the period after his arrest, RAY opened new bank accounts on behalf of CSA Business Solutions LLC and continued to solicit and accept investor funds for trucks that did not exist.  In the post-arrest period alone, RAY defrauded investors into paying at least $1.9 million into his scheme.

*                *                *

RAY, 51, of Canton, Michigan, pled guilty to four counts of wire fraud, including one count of wire fraud while released under conditions of bail and two counts of wire fraud affecting a financial institution, and one count of aggravated identity theft.  The counts of wire fraud while released under conditions of bail and wire fraud affecting a financial institution each carry a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison.  The remaining count of wire fraud carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.  Aggravated identity theft carries an additional mandatory two-year sentence, which must be imposed consecutively to any other sentence.  RAY also agreed to forfeit $42,128,912, including the funds on deposit at several bank accounts used in connection with the fraudulent schemes, including the primary CSA Business Solutions bank account.  RAY also agreed to pay restitution to the victims.

The maximum potential sentences in this case are prescribed by Congress and are provided here for informational purposes only, as any sentencing of the defendant will be determined by the judge.  RAY is scheduled to be sentenced at 11:40 a.m. on July 25, 2023, by U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres.

Mr. Williams praised the outstanding investigative work of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

This case is being handled by the Office’s General Crimes Unit.  Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Weinberg is in charge of the prosecution.

If you believe you have been a victim of the schemes described above, including a victim entitled to restitution, and you wish to provide information to law enforcement and/or receive notice of future developments in the case or additional information, please contact Wendy Olsen-Clancy, the Victim Witness Coordinator at the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, at 866-874-8900 or wendy.olsen@usdoj.gov.