News and reports from the Department of Justice.

News Release: MIAMI - Four South Florida residents have been sentenced to prison for participating in a conspiracy to defraud the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) out of loan proceeds. These loans are guaranteed by the Small Business Administration under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act.

News Release: Burlington, Vermont - The Office of the United States Attorney for the District of Vermont announced that Demetrius Thompson, aka “Tone," 44, of Brooklyn, New York was arrested yesterday in Rutland, Vermont. On Dec. 14, 2022, Thompson had been indicted by the federal grand jury for distributions of fentanyl and cocaine base. Thompson is scheduled to be arraigned later today before United States Magistrate Judge Kevin J. Doyle.

News Release: Scranton, PA - Today, United States Marshal Martin J. Pane announced the arrest of Justin Santiago, an 18-year-old Reading man.

News Release: HOUSTON - A 30-year-old Orlando, Florida, man has admitted to conspiracy to commit wire fraud in connection with a scheme to defraud the United States of COVID related disaster loan proceeds, announced U.S. Attorney Alamdar S. Hamdani.

A U.S. Trustee with the Department of Justice (DOJ) has filed an objection to Sullivan & Cromwell working as lead counsel for FTX in bankruptcy proceedings. Sam Bankman-Fried, the former CEO of crypto exchange FTX, wrote in a Substack post that he sees Sullivan & Cromwell's current work for FTX as a potential conflict of interest, given the law firm's previous work for FTX. A bipartisan group of U.S. senators recently expressed the same concern.

News Release: SANTA ANA, California - The former mayor of Adelanto has agreed to plead guilty to a federal criminal charge for accepting more than $57,000 in bribes and kickbacks in exchange for approving ordinances authorizing commercial marijuana activity within the city, and ensuring his co-schemers obtained city licenses or permits for their commercial marijuana activities, the Justice Department announced today.

News Release: SAN FRANCISCO - Melvin Alexis Diaz Arteaga appeared in federal court to face an indictment charging him with conspiracy to distribute fentanyl and possessing fentanyl, heroin, and cocaine with the intent to distribute it, and Luis Almicar Erazo-Centeno also appeared to face the indictment’s charges against...

News Release: DENVER - The United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Colorado announces that Maria Aurora Garcia-Paulino, age 41, of Thornton, was sentenced to 24 months in federal prison for money laundering related to a Denver-area drug trafficking operation. Co-defendant Laura Iveth Trujillo-Solano, age 44, of Thornton, was sentenced to 72 months in federal prison for conspiracy to commit money laundering.

News Release: MINNEAPOLIS - Two Cottonwood County men have been charged in a superseding indictment with conspiring to defraud grain purchasers out of more than $46,000,000 by selling non-GMO grains falsely labeled as organic, announced U.S. Attorney Andrew M. Luger.

News Release: SCRANTON - The Justice Department announced today that it has reached a settlement with Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, to resolve the department’s claims in Doe et al. v. Schuylkill County et al., a lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania alleging violations of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VII).

News Release: FARGO - United States Attorney Mac Schneider announced that on Jan. 13, 2023, United States District Judge Daniel L. Hovland sentenced 34-year-old Baquan Sledge, a/k/a Rell, a/k/a TJ, a/k/a Matthew Pierce, to serve 30 years in prison followed by three years supervised release.

News Release: FORT SMITH - A Bigelow, Arkansas woman was sentenced yesterday to 12 months and one day in prison followed by two years of supervised release on one count of Assaulting, resisting, and impeding a Federal Officer. The Honorable Judge P.K. Holmes, III, presided over the sentencing hearing in the United States District Court in Fort Smith.

News Release: LEXINGTON, Ky. - A Lexington man, Maurice A. Taylor, 44, was sentenced on Thursday to 385 months in federal prison, by Chief U.S. District Judge Danny C. Reeves, for two counts of possession with intent to distribute cocaine (five kilograms and 500 grams) and one count of possession with intent to distribute 400 grams of fentanyl.

News Release: Greenbelt, Maryland - U.S. District Judge Theodore D. Chuang today sentenced James Albert Borum, age 20, of Washington, D.C., to 11 years in federal prison, followed by five years of supervised release for carjacking and for brandishing a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence, in connection with a series of carjackings he committed in Montgomery and Prince George’s Counties.

News Release: Vanessa Roberts Avery, United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut, and Jean Pierre Njock, Acting Special Agent in Charge of the New Haven Division of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, today announced that HAMILTON CLARK SMITH, 57, of Milford, was arrested yesterday on a federal criminal complaint charging him with threatening a federal law enforcement officer.