Attorney General Jeff Sessions Delivers Remarks at the Alliance Defending Freedom’s Summit on Religious Liberty

A Honduran national was sentenced to 24 months in prison yesterday for theft of government funds in connection with his role in a stolen identity tax refund fraud scheme, announced Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Richard E. Zuckerman of the Justice Department’s Tax Division and U.S. Attorney John R. Lausch Jr. for the Northern District of Illinois.

A federal jury found a physician and two clinic owners and operators guilty yesterday for their roles in a $17 million Medicare fraud scheme.

“With these awards, we are doubling the amount of grant funding devoted to public safety programs and serving victims of crime in Native American communities,” said Principal Deputy Associate Attorney General Jesse Panuccio, who made the announcement during his remarks at the 26th Annual Four Corners Indian Country Conference in Santa Fe, New Mexico.  “There is an unacceptable level of violent crime and domestic abuse in American Indian and Alaska Native communities.  This increase in resources, together with our aggressive investigation and prosecution of crimes, shows how seriously Attorney General Sessions and the entire Department of Justice take these issues.  We are committed to reducing violent crime and improving public safety.”

Thank you, John (Huber), for that kind introduction and for your leadership in the District of Utah.  What a pleasure it is to be back in the Tenth Circuit, where I began my legal career as a judicial law clerk.   Thanks also to the other federal leaders who are here today, including the U.S. Attorney for New Mexico, John Anderson; First Assistant U.S. Attorney for Arizona, Betsy Strange; and First Assistant U.S. Attorney for Colorado, Matthew Kirsch.  I know that each of your offices, along with DOJ’s Office for Victims of Crime, put in a lot of hard and good work to prepare for and host this conference each year.  And I know that, on a daily basis, you and your teams are working tenaciously to fight violent crime, to drive down opioid and other drug overdoses, and to defend and advance the rule of law in our courts.  You are getting results, so keep up the fight.

Defendants Mohamed Toure, 57, and Denise Cros-Toure, 57, of Ft. Worth, Texas, were charged today in a five-count indictment with forced labor, alien harboring for financial gain, and conspiracies to commit forced labor and alien harboring, announced Acting Assistant Attorney General John Gore of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, U.S. Attorney Erin Nealy Cox of the Northern District of Texas, and Special Agent in Charge Jeffrey McGallicher of the Department of State, Diplomatic Security Services’ Houston Field Office. Defendant Toure was also charged with making false statements to federal agents. The defendants were arrested on April 26, 2018, after being charged by criminal complaint.

The United States filed a civil injunction suit seeking to bar Lakeesha Tucker, Lakeesha Tucker LLC, and Simplified Financial Services LLC, from owning, operating, or franchising a tax return preparation business and preparing tax returns for others, the Justice Department announced today. 

Thank you, John for that generous introduction and thank you for your dozen years of service to the Department of Justice.  John was once the captain of the Harvard football team and now he’s the captain of an office that serves 9 million people.

Michael Kaim, 28, a former police officer with the Veterans Affairs Medical Center Police Department, was sentenced today in U.S. District Court in Indianapolis, Indiana, for deprivation of civil rights, announced John Gore, Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division; United States Attorney Josh J. Minkler of the Southern District of Indiana; and Grant Mendenhall, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI’s Indianapolis Division. Kaim was sentenced to serve 12 months in prison and pay a fine of $1,000.