News

Milton C. Grimes, a long-time Los Angeles lawyer, pleaded guilty today to evading the payment of more than $4 million in federal taxes over a 21-year period.

United States Attorney Martin Estrada announced today that Assistant United States Attorneys Thomas F. Rybarczyk and Anna P. Boylan will lead the efforts of his office in connection with the Justice Department’s nationwide Election Day Program for the upcoming November 5 general election.

A Grammy Award-winning Chicago rapper has been arrested on a federal criminal complaint alleging he conspired with others to murder a rival rapper, resulting in a shooting and murder that took place at a gas station near the Beverly Center shopping mall in Los Angeles in August 2022 – an attack that resulted in a family member of the rival being shot and killed, the Justice Department announced today.

A Romanian man pleaded guilty today to his role in a scheme that involved using illegal skimmers on ATMs to harvest data, creating counterfeit debit cards using the stolen account holders’ information, and then using the cards to make cash withdrawals from numerous victims’ accounts.

A brother and sister from Rosarito, Mexico, were found guilty by a jury today for their roles in a kidnapping and ransom scheme in which the brother pretended to act as an intermediary between the victim’s family and the kidnappers while his son and sister crossed the border into the United States to collect the ransom money.

Two Riverside County women were arrested today on a 23-count federal grand jury indictment alleging they and two men schemed to defraud a COVID-19 pandemic-relief program out of more than $3 million by helping others fraudulently obtain COVID business loans in exchange for a cut of the illicit proceeds.

A Whittier man pleaded guilty today to arranging the armed robbery of a confidential federal informant and running an unlicensed firearm dealing business that, in part, sold so-called “ghost guns,” or guns lacking serial numbers. 

A three-count federal grand jury indictment returned today charges a Santa Barbara County man with committing a bomb attack at a courthouse in Santa Maria in which several people were injured.

A former counselor at a private school in Riverside County pleaded guilty today to possessing child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and placing a hidden camera inside bathrooms to film boys using the toilet and showers.

The District One Supervisor on the Orange County Board of Supervisors has agreed to plead guilty to a felony federal charge for accepting more than $550,000 in bribes for directing and voting in favor of more than $10 million in COVID funds to a charity affiliated with one of his daughters, Rhiannon Do, the Justice Department announced today. 

A San Fernando Valley man who admitted in court documents to causing one fatal fentanyl overdose was sentenced today to 248 months in federal prison for using darknet marketplaces to sell hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of fentanyl-laced pills and cocaine to buyers nationwide.

A Bell man was sentenced today to 188 months in federal prison for distributing narcotics, including more than 19,000 counterfeit oxycodone pills laced with fentanyl.