Northern District Of California Collects Over $65 Million In Civil And Criminal Actions For U.S. Taxpayers In Fiscal Year 2017

SAN FRANCISCO – Acting U.S. Attorney Alex G. Tse announced today that the Northern District of California collected $65,326,355.71 in criminal and civil actions in Fiscal Year 2017.  Of this amount, $59,083,869.47 was collected in criminal actions and $6,242,486.24 was collected in civil actions.  

Additionally, the Northern District of California worked with other U.S. Attorney’s Offices and components of the Department of Justice to collect an additional $1,503,464,445.51 in cases pursued jointly with these offices.  Of this amount, $2,378,828.59 was collected in criminal actions and $1,501,085,616.92 was collected in civil actions.          

Overall, the Justice Department collected just over $15 billion in civil and criminal actions in the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2017.  

“Year in and year out, the United States Attorney’s Office delivers results for the people of the United States in the form of millions of dollars in recoveries from criminal and civil defendants,” said Acting U.S. Attorney Alex Tse.  "This Office will continue the hard work of recouping victims’ losses from those who enrich themselves through crime and other violations of federal law.”

One example of the work being done in the Northern District of California involves criminal defendant Hien Minh Nguyen.  Evidence in the criminal case showed that Nguyen stole at least $1,449,365 from the San Jose Diocese between 2005 and 2011. On October 3, 2017, after Nguyen was convicted of bank fraud and tax evasion charges, the district court ordered the defendant to pay $1,449,365 in restitution to the Diocese of San Jose, and an additional $434,518 in restitution to the IRS. The Office of the United States Attorney for the Northern District of California recovered the entire $1,883,883 in restitution from Nguyen. 

The U.S. Attorneys’ Offices, along with the 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.

Additionally, the U.S. Attorney’s office in the Northern District of California, working with partner agencies and divisions, collected $9,206,346 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.