Month: April 2023

Source: United States Department of Justice News

Remarks as Delivered

Thank you. It’s a privilege to join you in this Great Hall, as we honor the survivors of the Holocaust and remember its victims on Yom Hashoah.

I am grateful to the Federal Inter-Agency Holocaust Remembrance Committee for inviting me to speak and hosting this important program, now in its 30th year.

It’s such a gift to be here with Peter Gorog and Manny Mandel, whose stories of courage and resilience inspire all of us.

As Attorney General, I am proud to serve alongside 115,000 extraordinary professionals in the Justice Department. 

Every day, we work to uphold the rule of law, to keep our country safe, and to protect the civil rights of everyone in this nation.

Each of us came to the Department for different reasons.

For me, it was to repay the debt my family owes to this country for our very lives.

Before World War I, America gave my family refuge from religious persecution that allowed them to survive the Holocaust when World War II came.

My grandmother was one of five children born in what is now Belarus. Three made it to the United States, including my grandmother.

Two did not make it. They were killed in the Holocaust.

If not for America, there is little doubt that the same would have happened to her.

But this country took her in. And under the protection of its laws, she was able to live here without fear of persecution.

I am also married to the daughter of a refugee who found protection in the United States.

Shortly after Hitler’s army marched into Austria in 1938, my wife’s mother escaped to America. And under the protection of our laws, she too, was able to live without fear of persecution.

That protection is what distinguishes America from so many other countries.

The protection of law – the Rule of Law – is the foundation of our system of government.

It is also one of the most powerful tools in the fight against hate.  

All of us know about the disturbing rise in antisemitism in this country. 

Indeed, hate crimes against Jews comprised the majority of religion-related hate incidents reported in 2021.

The Justice Department is doing everything in our power to combat the rise in hate-fueled acts and threats of violence.

We are aggressively enforcing hate crime statutes.

We have increased our capacity to investigate hate crimes and hate incidents.

And we are working with state and local governments to do the same.

We do this because we all know what happens when hate is allowed to take root.

We do this to ensure that a tragedy like the Holocaust never happens again.

And we do this because it is part of this Department’s historical inheritance.

In 1945, Justice Robert H. Jackson, a former Attorney General of the United States, served as the Chief Prosecutor at the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg.

In his opening statement, after describing the horrors committed by the Nazis, Justice Jackson emphasized the importance of the Rule of Law.

The trials would not only display to the world the depths of the defendants’ depravity, he explained. They would also put the forces of law, “its precepts, its prohibitions and, most [important] of all, its sanctions, on the side of peace, so that men and women of good will, in all countries, may have ‘leave to live by no man’s leave, underneath the law.’”

Decades later, in 1979, the Justice Department created the Office of Special Investigations to identify, denaturalize, and deport Nazi criminals in the United States.

That office also provided support to foreign counterparts in their efforts to bring to justice perpetrators in their jurisdictions.

My friend Eli Rosenbaum – who is well known to all of you – formerly led the Office of Special Investigations. There, he prosecuted World War II Nazi cases for nearly four decades.

I first met Eli in an elevator here at DOJ on a day he had brought Miep Gies to meet then-Attorney General Janet Reno. Mrs. Gies had risked her life to protect Anne Frank and others hiding in the Secret Annex in Amsterdam.

Now Eli leads our efforts against Russian war crimes. I am glad that Eli will be moderating a discussion later in today’s program.

The Justice Department knows that we have an obligation – both legal and moral – to hold individuals accountable for crimes driven by antisemitism and by all forms of hatred.

An obligation to help prevent and deter future acts of hate. An obligation to preserve the Rule of Law.

Through our work, we are sending a clear message that this Justice Department will not allow illegal acts of hatred to go unchecked or unchallenged.

As Americans, we also share obligation – an obligation to remember the horrors of the Holocaust and to listen to the stories of the survivors.

We have a shared obligation to stand up against the dangerous rise in antisemitism and hatred in all of its forms.

It is what we owe to the six million murdered in the Holocaust.

And it is what we owe to future generations.

Thank you for being with us today.

Source: United States Department of Justice News

A federal jury convicted an Oklahoma man on April 10 for the death of his daughter in Indian Country.

According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, Devin Warren Sizemore, 28, of McAlester, drowned his 21-month-old daughter. Sizemore was estranged from the child’s mother when he took the child for a visit. When he did not return the child and did not return to his residence, law enforcement was notified. Officers located Sizemore at a barn near a pond, where they confronted him and realized the child was face down in the pond. Sizemore admitted he “baptized” the victim and held her under water for approximately 30 seconds.

The Department of Justice’s Criminal Division and U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Oklahoma prosecuted the case because the defendant and victim in this case are members of a federally recognized Indian tribe and the crimes occurred in Pittsburg County, within the boundaries of the Choctaw Nation Reservation and within the Eastern District of Oklahoma.

Sizemore was convicted of child abuse resulting in death and voluntary manslaughter and will be sentenced at a later date. Sizemore faces a maximum penalty of life in prison for the child abuse resulting in death charge and 15 years in prison for the voluntary manslaughter charge. 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 Christopher J. Wilson for the Eastern District of Oklahoma, and Special Agent in Charge Edward J. Gray of the FBI Oklahoma City Field Office made the announcement.

The FBI, Oklahoma Bureau of Investigation, McAlester Police Department, Krebs Police Department, and Pittsburg County Sheriff’s Office investigated the case.

Trial Attorneys Lisa K. Man and Gerald A. A. Collins of the Criminal Division’s Organized Crime and Gang Section are prosecuting the case, with assistance from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Oklahoma and the District 18 (Pittsburg and Haskell Counties) District Attorney’s Office.

Source: United States Department of Justice News

Good morning. Thank you, Karhlton, for the kind introduction and for your leadership at the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA). Thank you to our fantastic COPS Director, Hugh Clements, for his invaluable leadership on this issue and so many others. I also want to thank the entire BJA and COPS teams for all their work over the past few months to make this convening possible.

And thank you all for being here. I wanted to come welcome you this morning to emphasize how important this meeting is to me and to the Justice Department. I am thrilled to see so many familiar faces in the room, and I am truly pleased that we have such a distinguished and experienced group of law enforcement leaders spending the day here, talking not just about the current crisis in recruitment and retention but most importantly about how we can develop and implement real, practical solutions for moving forward.

Today is an opportunity to build on the promising ideas raised during a meeting the Attorney General, Deputy Attorney General and I had with several of you this past February in D.C. and to focus on both short-term responses and long-term strategies to tackle recruitment and retention problems.

Your commitment and the work you are already doing is critical — from looking at pipeline issues to internship and apprenticeship programs to figuring out retention incentives that actually work and so much more. We at the Justice Department are here to work with you and learn from you. Today is not the beginning and it certainly won’t be the end, but it is an important step to making progress on this issue that sometimes feels intractable.

The idea for this convening came from you. The recruitment and retention crisis is the number one issue the Attorney General, Deputy Attorney General and I hear about from our state and local law enforcement partners. We hear about it from our own law enforcement components as well. I have heard from line officers, union leaders, command staff and police chiefs alike, from large, medium and small departments, at the federal, state and local levels, and in cities, suburbs and rural communities across the country. It affects everyone.

It is also important to make clear that when we say “recruitment and retention,” it is actually about so much more:

• I don’t have to explain to anyone in this room that hiring and holding onto qualified, experienced, committed law enforcement personnel is critical to public safety. Communities that struggle to maintain a top notch, diverse cadre of police officers have reduced capacity to respond to urgent community safety needs, engage in proactive community policing, or foster vibrant community partnerships.
• It is also fundamental to officer safety and wellness. We know the significant impact this staffing crisis has had on officer morale. We have placed too many social problems at the feet of police and are asking officers to do too much. Officers are burning the candle at both ends until, for many, they are simply burnt out and higher pay in other jurisdictions or professions becomes a draw. Meanwhile, other government agencies need to invest more in community safety and health solutions so that everything doesn’t fall on law enforcement alone and so officers have the supports they need.
• Recruitment and retention is also vital for building and maintaining police-community trust. Well-staffed and well-trained police forces not only help reduce violent crime, they increase community trust and collaboration, all of which contribute to building safe, healthy, and thriving communities.

This is why strengthening officer recruitment and retention is a top priority for the Department of Justice. We know this is a crisis. We recognize that this moment calls for deep reflection and big ideas. And it also calls for concrete strategies that departments can start using now and can rely on in the future. That is why we are here today.

We are here to talk about nuts and bolts around streamlining hiring practices without lowering standards; getting more young people; women; people of color and diversity into the profession; learning from the private sector and more. We are here to look inward, at department culture and transparency, community-police trust, generational divides, and the image of the profession, and how all these things may contribute to or exacerbate the current crisis. And of course, you are here to listen to and learn from each other.

Our goal is to coalesce around ‘best practices’ in recruitment and retention and lift and scale up those strategies that are working. But we also want to create, together, the ‘next practices’ that build upon lessons learned and leverage the expertise and creativity in this room. I hope that your discussions here today involve heavy doses of boldness and innovation. And I hope that together we can build a roadmap for short-, medium- and long-term strategies for the field to address this crisis, nationwide and in communities large and small.

We at the Justice Department are committed to deploying the full range of our funding, training, and technical assistance tools and resources to support these big ideas. We are here today, and we are in this for the long haul.

Thank you for your participation in today’s convening and for your commitment, expertise, and partnership. I look forward to harnessing the ideas generated together today and turning them into concrete actions to foster a top tier and inclusive law enforcement workforce for years to come. And all that in service of increasing public safety and public trust in every community across the country. Thank you.

Source: United States Department of Justice News

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico – U.S. District Court Chief Judge Raúl Arias-Marxuach sentenced José Luis González Rivera to 292 months (24 years and four months) in prison and 10 years of supervised release for production of child pornography and transportation of a minor with the intent to engage in sexual activity.

According to court documents, from March 2019 through March 2020, José Luis González Rivera knowingly employed, used, induced, and coerced a female minor when she was between the age of 14 to 16 years old to engage in sexually explicit conduct for the purpose of producing videos and still images using a cell phone with camera capabilities, which was manufactured outside of Puerto Rico. Also, the defendant transported the female minor victim to a motel with the intent to engage in sexual activity and to produce sexually explicit images.

Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Task Force agents in Ponce, Puerto Rico, investigated the case.

In a separate case, U.S. District Court Judge Pedro A. Delgado sentenced Luis Márquez Díaz to 204 months (17 years) in prison and seven years of supervised release for production of child exploitation material and possession of child exploitation material.

According to court documents, defendant Márquez Díaz communicated via social media with at least two female minors in a sexually explicit manner, sent them sexually explicit images and requested that the minors send him sexually explicit images.

A forensic review of the electronic devices seized from defendant Márquez Díaz revealed more than 600 images, both still images and videos, of child pornography, to include sexually explicit images of minors under the age of twelve and images depicting sadistic and masochistic abuse of minors and toddlers. The FBI investigated this matter. 

U.S. Attorney W. Stephen Muldrow of the District of Puerto Rico, HSI Acting Special Agent in Charge Rebecca González, and FBI Special Agent in Charge Joseph González made the announcements.

Assistant United States Attorney Jenifer Hernández, Chief of the Child Exploitation and Immigration Unit and Project Safe Childhood Coordinator, prosecuted the cases.

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Source: United States Department of Justice News

CONCORD – A Manchester man pleaded guilty in federal court to a bank robbery and Hobbs Act robberies in connection with four gas stations in New Hampshire, U.S. Attorney Jane E. Young announces.

Hector Rivera Ayala, 34, pleaded guilty to four counts of Hobbs Act robbery and one count of bank robbery. U.S. District Court Judge Elliott scheduled sentencing for August 1, 2023. Rivera Ayala was charged on May 14, 2021.

In December 2019, Rivera Ayala robbed four gas stations and one bank in Manchester, including Rapid Refill on Second Street; Brother’s Express Gas Station on Union Street; Shell Gas Station on Eddy Road; Shell Gas Station on Hanover Street; and the Bank of New England on Elm Street.  Each robbery was captured on video surveillance.  For each robbery, the defendant entered the gas station and bank with his face partially obscured and carrying what appeared to be a firearm.  Investigators recovered a shawl and a BB gun from the crime scene of one gas station.  The defendant’s DNA was found on the shawl.  In total, the defendant stole more than $5,500 from the gas stations and more than $160,000 from the bank.   

The charging statute provides a sentence of no greater than 20 years in prison, three years of supervised release, a fine of $250,000 and restitution. Sentences are imposed by a federal district court judge based upon the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and statutes which govern the determination of a sentence in a criminal case.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Manchester Police Department led the investigation. Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew T. Hunter is prosecuting the case.  

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