Category: US Department of Justice

Source: United States Department of Justice Criminal Division

Remarks as Prepared for Delivery

On behalf of the United States, I am thrilled to welcome you to this official High-Level Political Forum side event, “Turning the Tide: Scaling SDG 16 for the Future, Reinforcing Access to Justice, and Advancing Democracy.”  

My name is Rachel Rossi, and I serve as Director for the Office for Access to Justice at the U.S. Department of Justice.

I am honored to welcome you in partnership with the Department of State, the U.S. Mission to the United Nations, the U.S. Agency for International Development and our 16 co-sponsors. 

As you know, SDG 16 provides a roadmap to advance peaceful and inclusive societies, access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions. 

I am proud to lead an office focused on these principles, the Office for Access to Justice, which advances a vital mission: that justice should belong to everyone, regardless of wealth or status. We lead robust and high-level policy initiatives to close justice gaps. 

For example, just last month, our office launched AccessDOJ, a new Department-wide program that uses human-centered design principles to ensure that our services are more accessible, effective and efficient. We also promote economic justice, including through advocacy for the elimination of unjust legal system fines and fees. We support access to counsel and legal help, including through our launch of the first-ever medical-legal partnership in a federal prison to meet civil legal needs. And we advance access to justice across the U.S. government by leading the Federal Government Pro Bono Program and the White House Legal Aid Interagency Roundtable, among many more initiatives. 

Our office also plays a key role in U.S. engagement on access to justice within multilateral for a like the United Nations. In this role, we were proud to offer technical assistance during the negotiations which led the UN General Assembly last year to adopt the first-ever UN resolution on access to justice.

Additionally, in line with Presidential mandates, our office assists with U.S. efforts to implement SDG 16. In line with this directive, later today, the U.S. DOJ Office for Access to Justice is convening – for the first time – a variety of entities and leaders from diverse backgrounds, including academics, people with lived experience, civil society organizations, cities, counties, states and our federal government. Together, we will discuss how better collaboration going forward can generate knowledge, inspire action and connect data to policy to advance the goals of SDG 16 here in the U.S. We hope you will join us in this effort. 

I’ll conclude by centering us on the reason we are here: the far too many individuals who are simply not able to access justice in the U.S. and around the world. In these grand halls, with sweeping views, surrounded by governments, with the expansive goals set forth by an impressive Sustainable Development agenda, it can be easy to forget the people this work is for. But the founding United Nations Charter reminds us that the “peoples of the United Nations determined … to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small.” 

To pursue this work effectively, we must consistently center the perspectives of the communities we serve and the real-life impact of our mission. The United States ranks 115th out of 142 countries, and dead last among the 46 wealthiest countries, on “accessibility and affordability of civil justice” in the World Justice Project Rule of Law Index. In real and human terms, this means that people cannot get enough help with the most critical needs, such as access to housing, food security, keeping families together or safety from violence. The United States also maintains the highest prison population in the world, and barriers to accessing counsel remain pervasive across our criminal justice systems. 

SDG 16 is more than an agenda item. It is a tool to facilitate action to directly impact people, ensuring that core promises of economic security and equal justice are within reach for everyone. 

Colleagues, this Forum, and this panel, are a call to action for a renewed commitment to this mission. The task before us is urgent. Together we can turn the tide and successfully close the justice gap.

Now, to deliver keynote remarks, I am pleased to welcome Isobel Coleman, Deputy Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development. I was honored to join Deputy Coleman last year at the Summit for Democracy in Washington and continue to be impressed by her commitment to access to justice. Since that time, our partnership with USAID has grown – and we look forward to future joint efforts.

Source: United States Department of Justice Criminal Division

A Leader of Maniac Murder Cult, a White Supremacist Group, Allegedly Recruited Others to Commit Arsons and Bombings Targeting Racial Minorities and the Jewish Community

Planned New Year’s Eve Attack Involved Santa Claus Handing Out Poisoned Candy to Racial Minorities as well as Distributing Poisoned Candy to Jewish Children in Brooklyn

A federal grand jury in Brooklyn, New York, returned a four-count indictment today charging Georgian national Michail Chkhikvishvili, 21, also known as Mishka, Michael, Commander Butcher and Butcher, with soliciting hate crimes and acts of mass violence in New York City.

According to court documents, Chkhikvishvili was arrested pursuant to an Interpol Wanted Person Diffusion, which was issued based on a criminal complaint. Chkhikvishvili is alleged to be a leader of the Maniac Murder Cult, also known as Maniacs Murder Cult, Maniacs: Cult of Killing, MKY, MMC and MKU, an international racially or ethnically motivated violent extremist group. MKY adheres to a neo-Nazi accelerationist ideology and promotes violence and violent acts against racial minorities, the Jewish community and other groups it deems “undesirables.” MKY members share a common goal of challenging social order and governments via terrorism and violent acts that promote fear and chaos. MKY has members in the United States and abroad. Chkhikvishvili allegedly recruited others to commit violent acts in furtherance of MKY’s ideologies, including planning and soliciting a mass casualty attack in New York City from an undercover law enforcement employee whom Chkhikvishvili believed was a prospective MKY recruit.

Since approximately September 2021, Chkhikvishvili has distributed a manifesto titled the “Hater’s Handbook” to MKY members and others. The handbook discusses MKY’s principles and encourages members to engage in acts of mass violence in furtherance of those principles. In the handbook, Chkhikvishvili states that he has “murdered for the white race” and encourages and instructs others to commit acts of mass violence and “ethnic cleansing.” For example, and among other things, the handbook encourages its readers to commit school shootings and to use children to perpetrate suicide bombings and other mass killings targeting racial minorities. The document describes methods and strategies for committing mass “terror attacks,” including, for example, using vehicles to target “large outdoor festivals, conventions, celebrations and parades” and “pedestrian congested streets.” It specifically encourages committing attacks within the United States.

Sometime after April 2022, Chkhikvishvili traveled to Brooklyn and stayed with his grandmother while he was there. He traveled to the United States again in June 2022 and provided to border authorities his paternal grandmother’s address in Brooklyn as his address of record in the United States.

Beginning at least as early as July 2022, Chkhikvishvili repeatedly encouraged others, primarily via encrypted mobile messaging platforms, to commit violent hate crimes and other acts of violence on behalf of MKY. This included conspiring to solicit violent acts with a leader of a separate violent extremist neo-Nazi group and soliciting acts of mass violence in New York from an individual who claimed to be a prospective MKY recruit, but who, unbeknownst to Chkhikvishvili, was actually an undercover FBI employee (the UC).

In a September 2023 conversation, the UC messaged Chkhikvishvili whether there was an application process to join MKY. The defendant responded, “Well yes we ask people for brutal beating, arson/explosion or murder vids on camera.” He further stated that “[p]oisoning and arson are best options for murder,” and suggested also considering a larger “mass murder” within the United States. Chkhikvishvili advised the UC that the victims of these acts should be “low race targets.”

Beginning in approximately November 2023, Chkhikvishvili solicited the UC to commit violent crimes, such as bombings and arsons, for the purpose of harming racial minorities, Jewish individuals and others. Chkhikvishvili provided detailed plans and materials such as bomb-making instructions and guidance on making Molotov cocktails to facilitate his desire for the UC to carry out these crimes. In November 2023, Chkhikvishvili began planning a mass casualty attack in New York City to take place on New Year’s Eve. The scheme involved an individual dressing up as Santa Claus and handing out candy laced with poison to racial minorities and children at Jewish schools in Brooklyn. Chkhikvishvili drafted step-by-step instructions to carry out the scheme and shared with the UC detailed manuals on creating and mixing lethal poisons and gases. He also instructed the UC on methods of making ricin-based poisons in powder and liquid form, including by extracting ricin from castor beans. Some of the materials transmitted by Chkhikvishvili have been linked to radical Islamist jihadist groups and designated foreign terrorist organizations such as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Chkhikvishvili intended that the planned attack would be a “bigger action than Breivik,” referring to Anders Behring Breivik, a Norwegian neo-Nazi who killed 77 people in a bombing and mass shooting in Norway in 2011. Meanwhile, he told others of his plan and claimed to have previously committed other hate crimes while living in Brooklyn, New York, in 2022. Chkhikvishvili boasted to others that he was “glad I have murdered,” and that he would “murder more” but “make others murder first.”    

If convicted, Chkhikvishvili faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison for solicitation of violent felonies (including hate crime acts and transporting an explosive with intent to kill or injure), a maximum penalty of five years in prison for conspiring to solicit violent felonies, a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison for distributing information pertaining to the making and use of explosive devices and a maximum penalty of five years in prison for transmitting threatening communications.

Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the Justice Department’s National Security Division, U.S. Attorney Breon Peace for the Eastern District of New York and Executive Assistant Director Robert R. Wells of the FBI’s National Security Branch made the announcement.

The FBI is investigating the case.

Assistant U.S. Attorneys Ellen H. Sise and Andrew D. Reich for the Eastern District of New York and Trial Attorney Jennifer Levy of the National Security Division’s Counterterrorism Section are prosecuting the case. The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division also provided assistance.

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

A dual citizen of the United States and Ghana will make his initial appearance today in the Eastern District of New York to face charges related to his participation in a scheme to bribe Ghanaian officials to obtain and retain business from the Republic of Ghana.

Asante Kwaku Berko, 50, was extradited yesterday from the United Kingdom to the United States.

According to court documents, between December 2014 and March 2017, Berko, an executive director in the Investment Banking Division of a wholly owned subsidiary of a U.S. global investment banking, securities, and investment management firm, allegedly conspired with others in connection with a multi-year bribery and money laundering scheme. During this time, Berko was a member of the team at the firm that was responsible for securing and managing a deal between its client, a Turkish energy company, and the Republic of Ghana to build a power plant in Ghana and to provide financing for the plant. Berko and others allegedly offered and paid more than $70,000 in bribes to government officials in Ghana in exchange for their assistance in ensuring that the Turkish energy company was successful in winning the bid to build and operate the power plant.

Berko is charged with one count of conspiring to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), one count of violating the FCPA, and one count of conspiring to commit money laundering. If convicted, he faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison for conspiring to commit money laundering and five years in prison for each count of violating the FCPA and conspiring to violate the FCPA.

Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Nicole M. Argentieri, head of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division; U.S. Attorney Breon Peace for the Eastern District of New York; and Executive Assistant Director Michael Nordwall of the FBI’s Criminal, Cyber, Response, and Services Branch made the announcement.

The FBI’s International Corruption Unit is investigating the case.

Trial Attorney Elina A. Rubin-Smith of the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section and Assistant U.S. Attorneys Alixandra Smith, Tara McGrath, and Jessica Weigel for the Eastern District of New York are prosecuting the case.

The Justice Department’s Office of International Affairs worked with the Government of the United Kingdom, U.K. National Central Bureau of INTERPOL, and U.S. Marshals Service to secure the arrest and extradition of Berko.

The Criminal Division’s Fraud Section is responsible for investigating and prosecuting FCPA matters. Additional information about the Justice Department’s FCPA enforcement efforts can be found at www.justice.gov/criminal/fraud/fcpa.

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

A federal court on July 2 enjoined a West Virginia company and its owner from manufacturing, distributing or selling unauthorized nicotine vaping products.

In a complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia, the government alleged that Soul Vapor LLC and the company’s owner, Aurelius Jeffrey, violated the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act (FDCA) by causing tobacco products to become adulterated or misbranded while they were held for sale after shipment of one or more of their components in interstate commerce. According to the complaint, the defendants manufactured and sold finished electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS) products or e-cigarette products, including products under the Soul Vapor brand. The complaint alleged that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) warned the defendants that their ENDS products were adulterated and misbranded.

The complaint also alleged that the defendants submitted materially false information to FDA. Under the FDCA, entities that manufacture tobacco products must annually register with FDA. The government’s complaint alleged that the defendants falsely told FDA in their registration form that the company was “inactive” and “out of business” even while it continued to manufacture ENDS products. The complaint also alleged that Jeffrey told FDA that he would discontinue manufacturing and selling Soul Vapor-brand ENDS products that lacked FDA authorization, yet the products remained for sale.

The court previously granted the government’s motion for summary judgment against the defendants, finding that the defendants violated the FDCA and submitted materially false information to FDA. The order entered by the court permanently enjoins the defendants from directly or indirectly manufacturing, distributing, selling and/or offering for sale any new tobacco product that has not received marketing authorization from FDA. The court also ordered the defendants to destroy ENDS products that are manufactured by defendants and in their custody, control or possession.

The injunction against Soul Vapor is the most recent judicial enforcement action finalized since the Justice Department and FDA announced the creation of a federal multi-agency task force to combat the illegal distribution and sale of e-cigarettes. To date, the FDA has authorized the sale of 27 specific tobacco- and menthol-flavored e-cigarette products and devices. These are the only e-cigarette products that currently may be lawfully marketed and sold in the United States.

“Manufacturing and selling unauthorized vaping products is illegal and threatens public health,” said Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Brian M. Boynton, head of the Justice Department’s Civil Division. “The Justice Department will continue to work closely with the task force to bring enforcement actions against those who illegally manufacture, distribute or sell these dangerous products.”

“FDA has clearly outlined what manufacturers need to do to comply with the law, and we are committed to holding those who fail to do so accountable,” said Director Brian King, Ph.D., M.P.H. of the FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products. “FDA will continue to work with our federal partners to identify and bring enforcement actions against these bad actors.”

Trial Attorney Michael J. Murali of the Civil Division’s Consumer Protection Branch handled the case, with assistance from Associate Chief Counsel William Thanhauser of FDA’s Office of the Chief Counsel.

Additional information about the Consumer Protection Branch and its enforcement efforts can be found at www.justice.gov/civil/consumer-protection-branch.

Claims made in a complaint are allegations that, if a case were to proceed to trial, the government would be required to prove by a preponderance of the evidence.

Source: United States Department of Justice Criminal Division

Remarks as Prepared for Delivery

Good afternoon and thank you for the kind introduction. I also want to thank the National Bar Association (NBA) for the invitation to speak. It is an honor to speak at a luncheon named for the venerable Junius Williams, whose leadership and civil rights advocacy have helped advance causes we all hold so dear.

The NBA has an enviable track record of leadership in civil rights. Going back to the early 20th century, NBA lawyers have taken on responsibility for protecting and defending people from rights abuses. Black lawyers tried a case in 1919 to ensure Black voters were not prevented from participating in primary elections in Texas. Black lawyers fought segregation in Louisville, Kentucky. In the 1920s, Black lawyers challenged restrictive housing covenants in Washington, D.C. Black lawyers saved from the death penalty in 1942 the wrongly convicted “Pompano Boys” in Florida. Across the decades between now and then, NBA members have continued to make huge differences in our communities. They established free legal clinics, helped lead the pro bono movement of the civil rights era and they made Brown v. Board of Education a pivotal case in the civil rights movement. No wonder many people refer to the National Bar Association as the nation’s legal conscience.

As I stand before you, a lifelong civil rights attorney, I reflect on the role of attorneys in the movement for justice and freedom. Of course, lawyers have played a critical role in dismantling the legal structure of discrimination and in enforcing the civil and criminal anti-discrimination laws. As Dr. King told us, “It may be true that morality cannot be legislated, but behavior can be regulated. It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can keep him from lynching me.”

Twenty-twenty-four is a year of important anniversaries for the civil rights attorney: 60 years ago, Freedom Summer changed the course of American history. Earlier this month, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 turned 60. In May, the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision turned 70. These anniversaries are not merely dates on our calendar. They serve as landmarks in a relay race toward justice, where the work of the past allows us to carry the baton onward today and, soon, to pass the baton beyond us.

But attorneys were at first left out of conversations about civil rights. We have not always been seen as the influencers or opinion makers we are. With the civil rights movement, that changed. It started with an open letter in an Alabama newspaper challenging Governor George Wallace’s position on integration. Bernard Segal, then president of the American Bar Association, along with 46 other lawyers, declared that Wallace could not defy the federal court’s order to desegregate the University of Alabama. Soon after, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy invited 244 lawyers to the East Room of the White House to hear President John F. Kennedy and others speak about the need for civil rights legislation. This was part of the Kennedy administration’s effort to win hearts and minds to the cause by persuading powerful people of its urgency. Bobby Kennedy spoke as well. He argued that members of the legal profession, who had sworn an oath to the Constitution, were obligated to advance the rule of law. This meant more than merely litigating their own cases, in their own realms. It meant using their specialized knowledge and skills to advance civil rights. Bobby Kennedy’s entreaty did not fall on deaf ears.

Lawyers and many others took to heart these additional words from Dr. King: “[T]he law cannot change the heart, but it can restrain the heartless, and this is what we often do and we have to do in society through legislation.”  

I am sometimes struck by the fact that the Civil Rights Division that I now oversee did not always exist. Now in its 67th year, it is the product of the activism and organizing of the early civil rights movement, but also strategic and sound lawyering. For nearly seven decades, the Civil Rights Division has sought to protect and defend every American from harm and discrimination. While this goal is enduring, brick by brick we build justice up, even as others would dismantle it. In recent years, we have celebrated serious and important victories.

One of our highest priorities is ensuring that all eligible citizens can participate in that most fundamental element of democracy — the right to vote. Unfortunately, voter suppression efforts are still rampant across the country today, and we have taken many steps to fight these.

We have enforced voting rights laws. We continue to litigate several major cases brought in 2021 and 2022 to protect the right to vote in Texas (statewide redistricting), Georgia (state legislation on voting procedures) and Arizona (state legislation on voting procedures). In May, we won an injunction in Mi Familia Vota v. Fontes against an effort to require documentation of place of birth by people registering to vote in presidential elections.

We have defended the private rights to challenge practices under the Voting Rights Act (VRA) and other voting rights laws in district courts in Alabama (2), North Dakota, Pennsylvania, Kansas, Florida, Colorado and Texas.

We have defended the constitutionality of Section 2 of the VRA through intervention, including voter intimidation protections in Fair Fight v. True the Vote, which is pending, supporting the constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act in several pending cases challenging Georgia’s statewide redistricting plans and challenging the 2022 Louisiana House and Senate redistricting plans in Nairne v. Ardoin, which is pending, to defend the constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act.

Hate crimes continue to plague the most vulnerable members of our communities, stirred by renewed forces of racism and xenophobia. These offenses are intolerable, and the Civil Rights Division is committed to vigorously prosecuting the perpetrators. We have charged more than 120 defendants with hate crimes in over 110 cases since January 2021. This includes the three white men who killed Ahmaud Arbery just because he was Black, and the person who killed five and wounded 19 at Club Q in Colorado Springs, a haven for the LGBTQI+ community. Our work in this area can never undo the damage to victims or their families, but our swift and determined response can send a loud and clear message that no one should have to live in fear for because of how they look, where they are from, who they love or how they worship.

Every American has a right to policing that keeps them safe while protecting their constitutional rights. Most law enforcement officers fulfill this obligation faithfully, doing a hard job well, with often-unheralded acts of heroism. But when some officers engage in misconduct, it undermines the public trust essential to effective policing and deprives community members of fundamental rights. We have responded decisively to such misconduct. We have charged, convicted and put behind bars the officer responsible for tragically murdering George Floyd, and the three officers who stood by idly while he did so. We charged the Louisville officers whose misconduct resulted in the tragic death of Breonna Taylor, and the five Memphis police officers who beat Tyre Nichols to death. And six law enforcement officers in Rankin County, Mississippi, who described themselves as the “goon squad,” received sentences ranging from 10 to 40 years for bursting into the home of two Black Mississippi men without probable cause, abusing them, calling them racial epithets and torturing them.

The Civil Rights Division has also addressed systemic, structural injustices that run deep in this country. Banks and credit unions continue to deny loans to borrowers of color. Cities and towns continue to block affordable housing in their zeal to keep neighborhoods white. But in 2021, the Justice Department announced the Combating Redlining Initiative, under which we have achieved 12 redlining resolutions and secured significant restitution for communities of color: $122 million.

We protect children of color, children with disabilities and children with limited English proficiency who face bigotry and endure unfair treatment in their schools. As one example of many, two weeks ago we secured an agreement with Wichita Public Schools, Kansas’s largest school district. The district had a pattern of disproportionately disciplining children of color and children with disabilities, including referring them to the police. Our agreement ensures Wichita will be accountable for implementing the following: to stop this discrimination, end the use of seclusion, reform its restraint practices and improve services.

I could share dozens of additional examples of how we protect every American from unfair treatment: From Uber riders with disabilities being overcharged to people with mental health disabilities being unnecessarily institutionalized. From minors coerced into engaging in commercial sex to Black people exposed to risk of illness and other serious harm because of racially discriminatory and inadequate access to safe and effective sewage management.

I believe Bobby Kennedy’s 1963 call to action remains relevant today. And I see you, continuing to heed the call. You are putting your skills and expertise toward making sure our legal system and all our laws manifest our nation’s ideals. For some of us, this is through our core job. For others it is through pro bono representations or volunteer work. Without a doubt, you shoulder a tangible burden. As these last years have shined a light on injustices that persist even decades after the sweeping reforms wrought by the civil rights movement, the members of the NBA are standing up and stepping forward. You are making a difference.

As the late Congressman John Lewis reminded us, “Ours is not the struggle of one day, one week, or one year. Ours is not the struggle of one judicial appointment or presidential term. Ours is the struggle of a lifetime, or maybe even many lifetimes, and each one of us in every generation must do our part.”

We are all, in this room, powerful people. We are influencers. We are opinion makers. We are judges, attorneys, policymakers, advocates and citizens with an urgent drive to protect our democracy and to ensure equal justice under law. If we approach these challenges with courage and conviction, with fidelity to the Constitution and with empathy for those who are suffering, I have no doubt that we can move this nation closer to the ideal of equal justice that your forbears in the NBA worked so valiantly to achieve.

Thank you for having me today.