Source: United States Department of Justice Criminal Division
OVW conducted a live web-based pre-application information session for its Fiscal Year 2024 Special Tribal Criminal Jurisdiction: Targeted Support for Alaska Native Tribes Special Initiative (STCJ AK) Program solicitation. During the presentation, OVW staff reviewed this program’s requirements, discussed the solicitation, and allowed for a brief question-and-answer period.
Source: United States Navy
Seeking to strengthen relationships among senior regional medical leaders, the conference attendees discussed a range of topics, including preparing medical teams for combat missions; managing common injuries in the field; utilizing telemedicine in a field setting; supporting a multinational fighting force; and providing ancillary support in combat.
More than 100 personnel from 12 countries participated.
“I’m grateful to all the 12 partner nations who come out and join us from around the globe, all in a unified commitment to do the best that we can within military medicine to improve survivability and provide care both from a physical and a mental standpoint during times of crisis and even during times of peace,” said Capt. Jorge Brito, NAVCENT force surgeon and U.S. Fifth fleet surgeon.
Brito added that the universal language of medical care, which transcends every language barrier, aims for the same goal: to save lives and advance medicine on a global scale.
“The ability to present everyone’s best practices and lessons learned from medical care, whether it be trauma care for forces, U.S. forces, and partners allow us to achieve the understanding of cooperation and collaboration,” said Lt. Freddie Mawanay, the event’s coordinator. “The ability to understand someone else’s medical capabilities allows us to have that self-service support for any patient that presents in front of us,” said Mawanay.
NAVCENT/C5F is the maritime component commander of U.S. Central Command in the U.S. 5th Fleet area of operations, which encompasses about 2.5 million square miles of water in the Arabian Gulf, Gulf of Oman, Arabian Sea, the Gulf of Aden, the Red Sea and parts of the Indian Ocean. The expanse comprises more than 20 countries and includes three critical choke points: the Suez Canal, and the Bab al-Mandeb Strait and the Strait of Hormuz.
Source: United States Department of Justice Criminal Division
The Justice Department, in close coordination with the Department of Education, announced today the continued and growing success of a process instituted in November 2022 for handling cases in which individuals seek to discharge their federal student loans in bankruptcy. Data and information tracking the effectiveness of the process over the last year and a half demonstrate that it is achieving its goal of providing a more transparent, equitable, and streamlined mechanism for borrowers to request a discharge of their student loans in consumer bankruptcy cases. The process has translated into increasing numbers of eligible federal student loan borrowers seeking and obtaining debt relief under the Bankruptcy Code.
The Departments finalized new guidance in November 2022 that outlined a fairer, more accessible process to ensure consistent treatment of the discharge of federal student loans, reduce the burden on borrowers of pursuing such proceedings, and facilitate identifying cases where discharge is appropriate. At the time, both Departments committed to an ongoing assessment of the guidance’s effectiveness. As part of that commitment, the Justice Department surveyed all 94 U.S. Attorneys’ Offices after the first year of implementation, and it recently repeated its survey to obtain updated information about use of the guidance.
The information that the Departments have collected from these surveys indicates that the new process continues to be a success, and that an increasing number of borrowers are seeking and receiving discharges of their federal student loan debts. In particular, since the process was announced a year and a half ago, the data collected by the departments reveals that:
“We are now able to evaluate the success of the student loan bankruptcy discharge guidance with a robust record of empirical information,” said Acting Associate Attorney General Benjamin C. Mizer. “The results are clear: this guidance has helped make the promise of a fresh start in bankruptcy a meaningful option for individuals weighed down by student loan debt.”
“Our clear, fair, and practical standards are helping struggling borrowers find relief that was previously out of reach,” said U.S. Under Secretary of Education James Kvaal. “This data should puncture the myth that struggling borrowers cannot discharge their student loan debt through bankruptcy. We will continue to work with our partners at the Department of Justice to make it simpler and easier for borrowers to get much-needed relief in the way it was intended.”
In addition to the internal data surveys, the Justice Department has taken other measures to support and evaluate the new guidance. The Justice Department has been consulting closely with the Department of Education on the process. Since the implementation of the guidance, a dedicated group of experts within the Justice Department’s Civil Division also has collected input on the new process from consumer law groups, including the National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys. Finally, the Civil Division has conducted trainings for Justice Department attorneys as well as members of the public, including training events supported by regional bar associations and the courts. The Department of Education also participated in training events hosted by regional bar associations, the American Bankruptcy Institute and U.S. Trustee Program, as well as at the annual meeting of the National Association of Chapter 13 Trustees, which included private attorneys as well as Chapter 13 trustees.
The Departments will continue to monitor the impact of the guidance to ensure that it is appropriately implemented and meets the goals it was designed to achieve.
Source: United States Department of Justice Criminal Division
A federal grand jury returned an indictment yesterday charging a former Las Vegas city councilwoman and current Nye County, Nevada, justice of the peace for her alleged scheme to defraud donors to a charity to memorialize police officers who lost their lives in the line of duty.
According to the indictment, Michele Fiore, 53, of Pahrump, Nevada, a then-Las Vegas city councilwoman, solicited donations to build a statue honoring Las Vegas police officers who were killed in the line of duty. Fiore allegedly promised donors that “100% of the contributions” would be used towards the creation of this statue. As alleged, Fiore did not use any of the tens of thousands of dollars in charitable donations for the statue of the fallen officer and instead converted the money to her personal use. The donations were used to pay her political fundraising bills and rent and were transferred to family members, including to pay for her daughter’s wedding.
Fiore is charged with four counts of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. If convicted, she faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison on each count.
Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Nicole M. Argentieri, head of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, and Special Agent in Charge Spencer L. Evans of the FBI Las Vegas Field Office made the announcement.
The FBI Las Vegas Field Office is investigating the case.
Trial Attorneys Dahoud Askar and Alexander Gottfried of the Criminal Division’s Public Integrity Section are prosecuting the case.
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 Criminal Division
As part of its ongoing efforts to increase and improve access to the immigration court system, the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) is creating a new leadership position within EOIR’s Office of the Director focused on improving access to the immigration system and finding innovative ways to increase representation rates for noncitizens in immigration court. This new role will serve as EOIR’s public facing point of contact for government and public stakeholders with business before, or interest in, EOIR.
The new leadership role will also work to amplify interagency immigration access initiatives by proactively communicating information about available immigration services across government agencies as well as work with other government agencies to determine how best to increase access to the immigration court system as a whole. They will also serve as a central coordinator for feedback on access and representation concerns in the immigration court system and lead efforts to design responsive programming to address legal access concerns.
EOIR also continues to expand on its ongoing access initiatives, including: