United States Attorney Ron Parsons announced that the District of South Dakota collected over $2,508,255.71 in Fiscal Year (FY) 2017 from civil and criminal actions. Of this amount, $1,565,057.52 was collected in criminal actions, and $943,198.19 was collected in civil actions.
Additionally, the District of South Dakota worked with other U.S. Attorney’s Offices and components of the Department of Justice to collect $9,562,500.00 in cases pursued jointly with these offices. Civil actions made up the entirety of this amount.
Overall, the Justice Department collected just over $15 billion in civil and criminal actions in the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2017.
Also, working with partner agencies and divisions, the District collected $57,629 in asset forfeiture actions in FY 2017. Forfeited assets deposited into the Department of Justice Assets Forfeiture Fund are used to restore funds to crime victims and for a variety of law enforcement purposes.
“The collection of these monies represents a key component of the work we do in the U.S. Attorney’s Office," said Parsons. “Along with our prosecutorial responsibility, these recovered dollars play a vital role in helping crime victims, and also in recouping losses to the American taxpayer."
The U.S. Attorneys’ Offices, along with the Justice 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
