Month: August 2024

Source: United States Department of Justice Criminal Division

Remarks as Delivered

Thanks, Greg, for that generous introduction. And for your leadership of this office.

I came here to talk with our prosecutors and law enforcement leaders who are gathered at this table. They are working together every day as partners in confronting violent crime and protecting the citizens of Wisconsin.

When I became Attorney General three and a half years ago, I knew that the most powerful tool we would have to address violent crime would be partnerships like these. That was my experience when I was a line attorney prosecuting violent crime and narcotics in the early 1990s. That was my experience when I was a supervisor at the Justice Department organizing and supervising our activities in that regard later in the 1990s.

So, we built an anti-violent crime strategy rooted in strengthening our collaboration across federal law enforcement; with state and local law enforcement; and with the communities that all of us serve.

And we fortified those partnerships by bringing to bear the latest technologies for identifying and prosecuting the criminals who represent the greatest danger to our communities.

We have deployed our anti-violent crime strategy here in Wisconsin and across the country to arrest violent felons, to disrupt violent drug trafficking, and to prosecute the repeat offenders who are most responsible for driving violent crime.

For this U.S. Attorney’s Office, that has meant working with state, local, and Tribal law enforcement, as well as with our federal partner agencies, to stop the flow of fentanyl into Wisconsin communities.

Here in Milwaukee, and across the country, this work is paying off. A few months ago, the Milwaukee Police Department released promising data indicating a 10% drop in overall crime and a 39% drop in homicides in the first quarter of this year as compared to the first quarter of 2023.

And nationwide, last year we saw one of the lowest violent crime rates in 50 years. That included the largest drop in homicides in 50 years. And according to a recent report, the first six months of this year show further declines in violent crime across 40 American cities.

But we know that progress may be uneven in many communities is. And of course, there is no level of violent crime that is acceptable.

That is why this office is not relaxing its efforts. It is continuing to pursue investigations and prosecutions that keep the people of Wisconsin safe.

In March of this year, working with the Oshkosh Police Department, the Winnebago County Sheriff’s Office, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), this office secured a nine-year sentence for a man who illegally possessed a firearm. Last year, children had called 911 to a residence in Oshkosh after that defendant pointed a gun at them and used his gun to hit their mother so hard that he wounded her scalp. The defendant was arrested by a SWAT team after a nearly six-hour standoff.

In May, this office successfully convicted four men for multiple pharmacy robberies in Milwaukee. The men used handguns to threaten pharmacy staff and stole significant quantities of controlled substances, intending to distribute them.

The office is also working relentlessly to disrupt the flow of fentanyl into Wisconsin communities.

In April, this office worked with the Brown County Drug Task Force, Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), and the ATF to secure a 25-year sentence for a Green Bay man responsible for distributing counterfeit prescription pills laced with fentanyl, resulting in the deaths of two teenagers.

And last month, the office worked with those same three law enforcement agencies to secure a 20-year sentence for another man who distributed fentanyl to a teenager who died as a result. The defendant described himself as a “middler,” one who connected customers to a larger drug distributer. The Justice Department has made clear that we are committed to breaking apart every link in the fentanyl chain.

This office also worked to successfully prosecute a man from Appleton for fentanyl crimes. This man distributed nearly 1 million fentanyl pills in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Arizona. He even bragged that “There’s not a single pill in the Valley” — referring to Fox Valley — “that doesn’t have my name on it.” Last month, he was sentenced to 15 years in prison.

In that same month, this office secured a 12-year sentence of a man responsible for fentanyl crimes in Menominee and Ho-Chunk Tribal communities. We know how hard the fentanyl epidemic has hit Tribal communities. That is why we are working alongside law enforcement in Tribal communities to end it. I am grateful to the Menominee Tribal Police Department, the Central Wisconsin Narcotics Task Force, the FBI, and the Wisconsin State Crime Laboratory for helping us secure that conviction.

Fentanyl is the deadliest drug this country has ever faced. And this office will continue to use every tool at its disposal to go after all those who profit from this deadly epidemic.

I know that this U.S. Attorney’s Office will not rest until every person, in every neighborhood, in every community in Wisconsin is safe from violent crime.

I also know that these examples are just a snapshot of the work this office does every day to fulfill the Justice Department’s mission to keeping our country safe, keeping our communities safe, protecting civil rights, and upholding the rule of law.

I am very proud of the work of U.S. Attorney Haanstad and all the men and women of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Wisconsin. I am equally proud of the partnerships they have nurtured with the federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies that work every day to keep the people of Wisconsin safe.

Source: United States Department of Justice Criminal Division

A New York man pleaded guilty today to failing to collect and pay over employment taxes from wages of his company’s employees.

According to court documents and statements made in court, between 2015 and 2021, Nicholas Arcuri, of Staten Island — owner and president of Capri Upholstery Custom Furnishing LLC — paid approximately $2.6 million in off-the-books cash payroll to employees, from which he did not withhold from his employees’ wages any Social Security, Medicare or income taxes or pay over those taxes to the IRS. Arcuri concealed the cash payroll from his return preparer, knowing that he was required to pay taxes. 

In total, Arcuri caused a tax loss to the IRS of $486,753.

Arcuri is scheduled to be sentenced on Jan. 23, 2025. He faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison. He also faces a period of supervised release, restitution and monetary penalties. 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.

Trial Attorneys Richard J. Kelley and Jeffrey A. McLellan of the Tax Division are prosecuting the case.

Source: United States Department of Justice Criminal Division

The Justice Department issued the following statement from Attorney General Merrick B. Garland on the 59th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act:

“The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was signed into law 59 years ago in the wake of a generations-long struggle to make real the promise of the 15th Amendment: that no American citizen be denied the right to vote on account of race.

The Act gave the Justice Department some of its most powerful tools to protect the right to vote.

Between 1965 and 2013, the Department was able to block more than 3,000 restrictive voting changes in jurisdictions with a history of suppressing the vote because of the law.

But court decisions in recent years drastically weakened the protections of the Voting Rights Act. Since those decisions, there has been a dramatic increase in legislative measures that make it harder for millions of eligible voters to vote and to elect the representatives of their choice.

The Justice Department is not standing down in the face of those restrictions. We are challenging discriminatory, burdensome, and unnecessary restrictions on access to the ballot. We are working to block discriminatory redistricting plans. We are working with jurisdictions to ensure that their voting centers are accessible to voters with disabilities. We are defending the constitutionality of several Voting Rights Act provisions, including the prohibition on voter intimidation. And we continue to urge Congress to restore the provisions of the Voting Rights Act that courts have weakened, to ensure that we have the authorities we need to protect voting rights.

At the same time, efforts to undermine the right to vote have expanded to include a disturbing rise in threats of violence against the citizens we rely on to fairly administer voting — state and county elected officials, career administrators, and even volunteer poll workers.

The Justice Department has used and will continue to use every authority we have to protect the right to vote, and to protect the public servants who make voting possible. We are aggressively investigating and prosecuting threats of violence targeting election workers, officials, and volunteers.

While there are many things open to debate in our country, the right to vote must not be one of them. The right to vote is the cornerstone of our democracy, the right from which all others flow. The Justice Department will never stop working to ensure that every eligible voter can cast a vote that counts.”