Press Releases

Thomas L. Hallock, a commercial fisherman licensed in Maryland, was sentenced today in U.S. District Court in Greenbelt, Md., to 12 months in prison, for illegally overfishing striped bass also known as rockfish. He was also fined $4,000 and ordered to pay restitution in the amount of $40,000 to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation to the benefit of the Chesapeake Bay Striped Bass Restoration Account.

A federal grand jury has returned an 18-count superseding indictment charging Thomas E. Parenteau of Columbus, Ohio; Dennis G. Sartain of Hilliard, Ohio; and Bonnie Helt-Adams of Dublin, Ohio, with tax fraud, bank and wire fraud, money laundering and obstruction of justice.

A former Army and Air Force Exchange Service (AAFES) official pleaded guilty today in U.S. District Court in Columbus, Ga., for his role in a conspiracy to commit bribery involving a multimillion dollar telecommunications contract, and for not reporting the bribes he accepted on his income tax returns.

A Chicago grand jury indicted the president and vice president of an Illinois refuse disposal container repair company for engaging in a conspiracy and scheme to defraud the city of Chicago on a contract for the repair of refuse carts. This is the first case to be brought in the Department’s ongoing antitrust investigation into the refuse cart repair industry.

“These exceptional individuals will help lead the Department with dedication, sound judgment and integrity, whether it’s aggressively enforcing the antitrust laws, overseeing civil enforcement in the Department’s largest litigation division, or combating traditional crimes such as financial fraud or drug trafficking,” said Attorney General Eric Holder. “I look forward to working with them to advance the interests of justice on behalf of the American people.”

Two subsidiaries of the Swedish company Trelleborg AB, one based in Virginia and the other in France, have agreed to plead guilty and pay a total of $11 million in criminal fines for their participation in separate conspiracies affecting the sales of marine products sold in the United States and elsewhere.

Alta Colleges Inc. and its wholly-owned collegiate schools in Texas have agreed to pay the United States $7 million to resolve allegations under the False Claims Act that the Texas schools submitted false claims for federal student aid funds. The United States alleged that Alta’s Texas colleges obtained the requisite state licenses by misrepresenting to the state licensing agency that they complied with state job-placement reporting requirements and that their interior design programs complied with requirements for a professional license.

DuPont and Lucite International Inc. have agreed to pay a $2 million civil penalty to settle Clean Air Act violations at a sulfuric acid plant in Belle, W. Va. The sulfuric acid plant is located on a 100-acre chemical manufacturing complex along the Kanawha River. The plant is owned by Lucite and operated by DuPont. The companies will pay $1 million to the United States and $1 million to the state of West Virginia.

Daryl Lee Fierce, 69, of Charleston, W.Va., pleaded guilty today to a civil rights charge in federal court in the Southern District of West Virginia for using fire to intimidate and interfere with a person’s housing rights. Fierce set fire to the victim’s home because African-American and biracial individuals visited the victim in her home.

Timothy Smith, a resident of Cullman, Ala., pleaded guilty today in federal court in Birmingham to one count of tax evasion, the Justice Department and Internal Revenue Service (IRS) announced.

A federal judge today sentenced Jimmy “Jimbo” Sullivan, the former chief of police in Mendenhall, Miss., to 30 months in prison for using excessive force when he repeatedly stomped on the head of an arrestee. At his guilty plea hearing on Jan. 30, 2009, Sullivan admitted that he used excessive force on July 22, 2005, after joining other law enforcement officials in the apprehension of a man who led police on a car chase.

Six energy companies, in three settlements, have agreed to install pollution control equipment at a cost of over $6 million to comply with the Clean Air Act at their natural gas producing facilities in the Uinta Basin, near Vernal, Utah. The facilities are located on the Uintah & Ouray Indian Reservation. The series of three settlements with Bill Barrett Corp, Wind River Corp, XTO Energy Inc., Dominion Exploration and Production Inc., Whiting Oil and Gas Corporation, and Miller Dyer and Company were filed today in U.S. District Court in Salt Lake City, Utah.