Statement by Attorney General Sessions on Chinese Narcotics Scheduling

A Washington, D.C. resident pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud the United States and aggravated identity theft on December 4, 2018, announced Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Richard E. Zuckerman of the Justice Department’s Tax Division and Kelly R. Jackson, Special Agent in Charge of IRS-Criminal Investigation, Washington D.C. Field Office. The guilty plea arose from a scheme to file false tax returns in the names of unemployed individuals that fraudulently claimed refunds. Scutchings and her co-conspirators cashed or deposited more than $1 million in Treasury checks illegally obtained through the scheme.

A former Information Technology professional was sentenced to 30 months in prison and three years supervised release for conducting cyberstalking and threat campaigns against multiple Washington residents, announced Assistant Attorney General Brian A. Benczkowski of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division and U.S. Attorney Annette L. Hayes of the Western District of Washington. The victims’ names are being withheld to protect their privacy.

An owner of a now-defunct Miami pharmacy was sentenced today to 46 months in prison for his participation in a scheme that caused Medicare to pay $2.5 million in false and fraudulent claims for prescription drugs that were never purchased.

An Eagle River, Wisconsin man, who resided in San Francisco, California, was sentenced to 30 months in prison on Tuesday December 4, 2018, by U.S. District Judge Robert Seeborg in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, announced Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Richard E. Zuckerman of the Justice Department’s Tax Division and United States Attorney Alex G. Tse.

The Antitrust Division will therefore investigate and bring enforcement actions to end practices that eliminate the independent centers of decision-making and thereby harm competitive processes, including price competition and innovation competition.  Often a single maverick firm may be willing to take a chance on a new and innovative technology or business model that the rest of its competitors would rather see killed off in its incipiency.  Antitrust law recognizes the consumer benefit of those entrepreneurial and innovative tendencies and their vulnerability to collusion.

A Birmingham business executive was sentenced to serve 48 months in prison for passing a fictitious financial instrument and obstructing the administration of the Internal Revenue laws, announced Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Richard E. Zuckerman of the Justice Department’s Tax Division, and United States Attorney Louis V. Franklin, Sr., of the Middle District of Alabama.

Kassim Tajideen, the operator of a network of businesses in Lebanon and Africa whom the U.S. Department of the Treasury designated as an important financial supporter to the Hezbollah terror organization, pleaded guilty today to charges associated with evading U.S. sanctions imposed on him.