DALLAS - U.S. Attorney Sarah R. Saldaña announced today that the Northern District of Texas collected $13,130,113.54 in criminal and civil actions in Fiscal Year 2014. Of this amount, $9,419,602.42 was collected in criminal actions and $3,710,511.12 was collected in civil actions.
Additionally, the Northern District of Texas worked with other U.S. Attorney’s Offices and components of the Department of Justice to collect an additional $3,991,303.62 in cases pursued jointly with these offices. Of this amount, $101,976.45 was collected in criminal actions and $3,889,327.17 was collected in civil actions.
The District has also been successful seizing proceeds of crime for asset forfeiture. For the first three quarters of FY 2014, working with partner agencies and divisions, the office collected more than $35 million in asset forfeiture actions.
“This District is dedicated not only to protecting the public, but to recovering funds for victims of federal crimes and the federal treasury," said U.S. Attorney Saldaña. “These statistics show this office’s commitment to recover ill-gotten gains from those who violate federal criminal and civil laws so that funds can be restored to crime victims and a variety of law enforcement programs can be funded."
Substantial collections in the District in FY 2014 include:
• $1 million in forfeited assets restored as restitution, and disbursed to hundreds of victims in U.S. v. Gregory Rand, et al., an oil and gas investment fraud case;
• $1.125 million civil settlement paid by Kwik Industries, Inc., for falsified loan applications a former employee made to the Small Business Administration (SBA), plus $176,000 recovered from the former employee was disbursed to the SBA and other lenders who were victims in U.S. v. Janice Stallons, after the Fifth Circuit affirmed the garnishment of her accounts;
• $525,000 in fines paid by defendants in U.S. v. Califco, LLC and Jonathan Shokrian, for shoddy asbestos removal from a shopping center in Irving, Texas;
• $340,000 garnished from multiple bank and retirement accounts of Cyprian Akamnonu, the first convicted defendant in the massive health care fraud case, U.S. v. Jacques Roy, et al.;
• $300,000 in restitution to 39 victims of convicted securities fraudster Jason Kosova; and
• $255,000 garnished from the business of Travis Atterberry on a 17-year-old bank fraud judgment..
Last month, Attorney General Eric Holder announced that the Justice Department collected $24.7 billion in civil and criminal actions in the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2014. The more than $24 billion in collections in FY 2014 represents nearly eight and a half times the appropriated $2.91 billion budget for the 94 U.S. Attorney’s offices and the main litigating divisions in that same period.
“Every day, the Justice Department’s federal prosecutors and trial attorneys work hard to protect our citizens, to safeguard precious taxpayer resources, and to provide a valuable return on investment to the American people," said Attorney General Eric Holder. “Their diligent efforts are enabling us to achieve justice and recoup losses in virtually every sector of the U.S. economy. And this result shows the fruits of the Justice Department’s tireless work in enforcing federal laws; in protecting the American people from violent crime, national security threats, discrimination, exploitation, and abuse; and in holding financial institutions accountable for their roles in causing the 2008 financial crisis."
The U.S. Attorneys’ Offices, along with the department’s litigating divisions, are responsible for enforcing and collecting civil and criminal debts owed to the U.S. and criminal debts owed to federal crime victims. The law requires defendants to pay restitution to victims of certain federal crimes who have suffered a physical injury or financial loss. While restitution is paid to the victim, criminal fines and felony assessments are paid to the department’s Crime Victims’ Fund, which distributes the funds to state victim compensation and victim assistance programs.
The largest civil collections were from affirmative civil enforcement cases, in which the United States recovered government money lost to fraud or other misconduct or collected fines imposed on individuals and/or corporations for violations of federal health, safety, civil rights or environmental laws. In addition, civil debts were collected on behalf of several federal agencies, including the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Health and Human Services, Internal Revenue Service, Small Business Administration and Department of Education.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the United States Attorneys
