Every April, our nation pauses to mark the contributions, and the profound sacrifices, of this extraordinary leader. Dr. King dedicated his career to the service of others.

"You are helping to realize the promise of our justice system by working to give every victim a voice and the help they need and deserve."

The chief executive officer and a managing partner of a New York-based U.S. broker-dealer were arrested today on felony charges arising from a conspiracy to pay bribes to a senior official in Venezuela’s state economic development bank.

It was that promise that, nearly forty years ago, led Congress to hold a series of hearings that lifted the curtain and shed light on abusive child-welfare practices that were separating Native children from their families at staggering rates; uprooting them from their tribes and their culture. Roughly one of every three or four Indian children, according to data presented at those hearings, had been taken from their birth families and placed with adoptive families, in foster care, or in institutions that had little or no connection to the child's tribe.

A fourth U.S. Navy official has been charged in a complaint unsealed today with accepting cash, luxury travel and consumer electronics from a foreign defense contractor in exchange for classified and internal U.S. Navy information.

The International Competition Network (ICN) adopted new recommended practices for predatory pricing analysis and competition assessment, and approved new work product on international merger enforcement cooperation, confidentiality protections during investigations, leniency policy and digital evidence gathering.

On January 3, 2014, the Director of National Intelligence declassified and disclosed publically that the U.S. government had filed an application with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court seeking renewal of the authority to collect telephony metadata in bulk, and that, the FISC renewed that authority. The Office of the Director National Intelligence also announced that the Administration was undertaking a declassification review of the FISC's January 3 primary order. On February 12, 2014, and following a declassification review by the Executive Branch, the FISC released in redacted form the previously classified January 3 primary order it had issued in Docket Number BR 14-01, along with a number of other documents.

A high-level international meeting to support the Government of Ukraine in recovering stolen assets begins tomorrow in London. The gathering is a landmark for Ukraine in underscoring the rule of law and international cooperation. The international community and the Government of Ukraine are united in their commitment and determination in returning stolen assets to the people of Ukraine.

A soldier in the Texas Army National Guard pleaded guilty today for his role in a bribery and fraud scheme that caused more than $30,000 in losses to the U.S. National Guard Bureau.

Oneike Mickhale Barnett, a Jamaican citizen, was sentenced today in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., in connection with his role in a fraudulent lottery scheme based in Jamaica that targeted victims in the United States.

Charmaine Anne King was sentenced today in connection with her role in a fraudulent international lottery scheme that targeted U.S. citizens.

As difficult as times may be – and as wrenching as every loss we mark this evening – we affirm this week that our work must go on. Each of us is called to serve, to protect, and to help forge a society worthy of the passion, the dedication, and the sacrifices made by each of our fallen heroes. To create not merely a monument to their stories, but a living memorial. And to build a country dedicated to preserving and perpetuating their memories by reaching for the better and brighter future that all of our citizens deserve.

Today, the Department of Justice and Office of the Director of National Intelligence released, in redacted form, a previously classified series of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court filings and orders from 2009-2010 concerning the collection of bulk telephony metadata under Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act. These documents relate to a robust interaction that occurred between the Department of Justice and a telecommunications service provider that included the provider’s review of prior FISC applications, orders and opinions, regarding lawful compliance with those orders.

A former owner and operator of a Florida-based airline fuel supply service company was sentenced today to serve 50 months in prison for participating in a scheme to defraud Illinois-based Ryan International Airlines.

At the Department of Justice, we have repeatedly pledged that we would do more to hold accountable those that engage in these actions. Today, we begin to fulfill that pledge.

U.S. Navy Petty Officer First Class Daniel Layug pleaded guilty in the Southern District of California today to accepting more than $10,000 in cash, consumer electronics and travel expenses from a foreign defense contractor in exchange for classified and internal Navy information.

A total of 19 individuals were arrested across the United States and internationally on charges brought by federal prosecutors in Mississippi, South Carolina and Georgia.

The work of these honorees in rescuing missing and exploited children – and in bringing perpetrators of these heinous crimes to justice – is exceptional. It takes very special people to perform such difficult – and in many cases heart-wrenching and life-changing – duties.

Zhifei Li, the owner of an antique business in China, was sentenced today to serve 70 months in prison for heading an illegal wildlife smuggling conspiracy in which 30 rhinoceros horns and numerous objects made from rhino horn and elephant ivory worth more than $4.5 million were smuggled from the United States to China.

A Las Vegas jury returned guilty verdicts yesterday against Alan Rodrigues, a former casino owner from Henderson, Nevada, Weston Coolidge, a former businessman from Las Vegas, and Joseph Prokop, a former National Football League punter from Upland, California, for conspiracy and fraud related to their promotion of a fraudulent tax product through the now-defunct National Audit Defense Network.

The Justice Department today announced a multi-national effort to disrupt the Gameover Zeus Botnet – a global network of infected victim computers used by cyber criminals to steal millions of dollars from businesses and consumers – and unsealed criminal charges in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Omaha, Nebraska, against an administrator of the botnet.

Former Specialist Christopher Renfro, 26, of Houston, Texas pleaded guilty today to two counts of wire fraud and one count of aggravated identity theft. Previously, on March 24, 2014, Renfro pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy and one count of bribery in connection with the same scheme.

"Standing by as Native voices, for whatever reason, are shut out of the democratic process is not an option. That is why the Attorney General and I support legislative steps that will guarantee voters have access to polling places on Indian reservations and in Alaska Native villages," said Associate Attorney General West.

Marcel Lehel Lazar, 42, of Arad, Romania, also known as the hacker “Guccifer,” was indicted by a federal grand jury today on charges of wire fraud, unauthorized access to a protected computer, aggravated identity theft, cyberstalking and obstruction of justice

A man from Atlanta, Georgia, pleaded guilty today for his role in a Jamaican-based fraudulent lottery scheme

Ahmed Abu Khatallah, aka Ahmed Mukatalah, a Libyan national approximately 43 years of age, has been charged for his alleged participation in the Sept. 11, 2012, attack on the U.S. Special Mission and Annex in Benghazi, Libya, which resulted in the deaths of four Americans

The Justice Department and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released the following joint statement Friday

And equally important, I want to thank all of you -- the gathered Ministers, Deputy Ministers, Attorneys General, Supreme Court Justices, and criminal legal aid providers and experts -- for participating in this conference. Your presence here epitomizes the dual truths that all free people, wherever they may live, lay valid claim to equality in the eyes of the law, and that the majesty of the law finds its best and highest use in the service of justice.

The Department of Justice and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) released the following statement Friday

Seven Colombian nationals were extradited to the United States to face charges relating to the kidnapping and murder of Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Special Agent James Terry Watson

A retired Navy official who started a second career working for defense contractor Glenn Defense Marine Asia (GDMA) pleaded guilty in federal court today, admitting that he and others overcharged the Navy by up to $2.5 million for port services to American ships and then used some of the proceeds to treat Navy officials to lavish dinners, cocktails and entertainment

In a speech Tuesday, Attorney General Eric Holder called Syria "a cradle of violent extremism" and urged multilateral law enforcement action to confront the security threat posed by radicalized individuals from the United States and Europe traveling there

A soldier of the U.S. Army National Guard pleaded guilty today for his role in a wide-ranging corruption scheme involving fraudulent recruiting bonuses from the Army National Guard Bureau

This week marks a busy time for national security law. There is a lot going on in the world, all of which we are tracking closely. But I’m going to focus today on the threats associated with national security cyber issues.

The Department of Justice’s Office of Justice Programs (OJP), in partnership with the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP), today released a seminal model policy regarding police interaction with children who are impacted when a parent is arrested and law enforcement carries out its investigative and arrest responsibilities. Reflecting the collective input of a wide range of subject-matter experts and stakeholders, and understanding that interactions between children and law enforcement create lasting impressions, the resulting model policy, Safeguarding Children of Arrested Parents , provides strategies for law enforcement to improve their procedures and positively impact the communities they serve

"This morning, as I look around this crowd of passionate professionals and dedicated public servants, I cannot help but feel confident in our ability to do just that; to develop smart solutions to the toughest problems we face; to protect the rights of everyone in this country, no matter their salary or their skin color; and to further enshrine the ideals of American justice into the annals of American law."

"Because if a government of, by and for the people means anything at all, it means that a ballot has the power to give equal voice to the high and the low; the weak and the strong; those at the bottom as well as the top. It means that in the polling place, the line is just as long for the richest among us as it is for those who often work the hardest but have the least."

A Russian national indicted for hacking into point of sale systems at retailers throughout the United States and operating websites that distributed credit card data of thousands of credit card holders appeared today for arraignment in U.S. federal court, announced U.S. Attorney Jenny A. Durkan of the Western District of Washington and Assistant Attorney General Leslie R. Caldwell of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division

A Colombian man extradited to the Eastern District of Virginia pleaded guilty today for his involvement in the kidnapping and murder of Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Special Agent James Terry Watson in Bogotá, Colombia, on June 20, 2013.

A Canton, Massachusetts, man was arrested today at Boston's Logan International Airport in connection with the ongoing criminal investigation of New England Compounding Center by the Justice Department’s Civil Division and U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts.

Child Cyber Safety Night at the Ballpark is the latest effort by the Justice Department and its law enforcement and community partners to encourage parents to speak with their children about online and cell phone safety and provide prevention materials.

On January 15, 2009, the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review (FISC-R) published an unclassified version of its opinion in In Re: Directives Pursuant to Section 105B of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, 551 F.3d 1004 (Foreign Intel. Surv. Ct. Rev. 2008). The classified version of the opinion was issued on August 22, 2008, following a challenge by Yahoo! Inc. (Yahoo!) to directives issued under the Protect America Act of 2007 (PAA). Today, following a renewed declassification review, the Executive Branch is publicly releasing various documents from this litigation, including legal briefs and additional sections of the 2008 FISC-R opinion, with appropriate redactions to protect national security information. These documents are available at the website of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), www.dni.gov; and ODNI’s public website dedicated to fostering greater public visibility into the intelligence activities of the U.S. Government, IContheRecord.tumblr.com. A summary of the underlying litigation follows.

Buenas tardes. Muchas gracias por sus emotivas palabras y su calurosa bienvenida. It’s a privilege to help welcome the Hispanic National Bar Association to our nation’s capital for your 39th Annual Convention. And it’s a great pleasure, as always, to be in such distinguished company.

Benjamin Pierce Bishop, 60, a former Honolulu, Hawaii, civilian defense contractor and retired lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army, was sentenced today by U.S. District Judge Leslie E. Kobayashi to serve 87 months imprisonment and three years’ supervised release for willfully communicating classified national defense information to a person not authorized to receive it and unlawfully retaining classified national defense information at his home.

Attorney General Eric Holder announced today the launch of the Justice Department’s National Initiative for Building Community Trust and Justice.

A Las Vegas man pleaded guilty today to conspiracy for his role in an investment fraud scheme that promoted fraudulent investment opportunities and caused more than $5 million in losses to investors

A federal jury in Las Vegas convicted two men of conspiracy, wire fraud and securities fraud yesterday for their roles in an approximately $10 million international investment fraud scheme involving numerous victims

A Las Vegas man was sentenced today to 60 months in prison for his role in an investment fraud scheme that promoted fraudulent investment opportunities and caused more than $5 million in losses to investors

ChromaDex Corp. announced NIAGEN® nicotinamide riboside prevented neurological damage and improved cognitive and physical function in a new mouse model of Alzheimer’s disease.

by ProPublica

The Pulitzer Board announced Monday that two series published by ProPublica were awarded Pulitzer Prizes. “Lawless,” a ProPublica Local Reporting Network project by the Anchorage Daily News that revealed how indigenous people in Alaska are denied public safety services, was awarded the prize for public service. “Disaster in the Pacific,” an investigation on the staggering leadership failures that led to deadly accidents in the Navy and Marines, won a national reporting prize. The two designations are ProPublica’s 6th Pulitzer win in 12 years and the first Pulitzer awarded to a Local Reporting Network partner.

Led by Daily News reporter Kyle Hopkins, “Lawless” was the first comprehensive investigation to lay bare Alaska’s failing, two-tiered justice system in which Native villages are denied access to first responders. In much of rural Alaska, villages can only be reached by plane, and calling 911 to report an emergency often means waiting hours or days for help to arrive.

The series evolved from a string of stories that Hopkins reported in 2018 for the Daily News, recounting horrific incidents of sexual assault in Alaska — which has the nation’s highest rate of sexual violence — and policing failures that have allowed offenders to continue the abuse with impunity. To fully investigate issues of lawlessness and sexual assault in the most remote communities in the U.S., the Daily News applied to participate in ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network. The program partners with newsrooms across the country, paying the salary and a stipend for benefits for local reporters who spend a year tackling big investigative stories that are crucial to their communities. Participating reporters work with a ProPublica senior editor and receive support, including from ProPublica’s data, research and engagement teams.

The collaboration’s first story, based on more than 750 public records requests and interviews, found that one in three rural Alaska communities has no local law enforcement of any kind. These indigenous communities are also among the country’s most vulnerable, with the highest rates of sexual assault, suicide and domestic violence. The series’ second major installment found that dozens of Alaska communities, desperate for police of any kind, hired officers convicted of felonies, domestic violence, assault and other offenses that would make them ineligible to work in law enforcement or even as security guards anywhere else in the country.

Next, Hopkins revealed how the state’s 40-year-old Village Public Safety Officer Program, designed to recruit villagers to work as life-saving first responders, has failed by every measure. Alaska had quietly denied funding for basic recruitment and equipment costs for these unarmed village officers while publicly claiming to prioritize public safety spending. “Lawless” also exposed how the Alaska State Troopers agency, created to protect Alaska Native villages, instead patrols mostly white suburbs surrounding cities on the road system like Wasilla. The series ended with a list of six practical solutions to Alaska’s law enforcement crisis, based on interviews with experts, village leaders, the Alaska congressional delegation and sexual assault survivors.

The Daily News and ProPublica faced a number of challenges in reporting the series. The first: No one knew which remote Alaska villages had police officers of any kind. So they built the first-ever statewide policing database by drawing on payroll, arrest and hiring records from communities spread across the state. They also contacted every village city government, sovereign tribal administrator and Alaska Native corporation in the state — more than 600 organizations.

The vastness of the state and the fact that 80% of communities aren’t on the road system posed another challenge. Journalists flew hundreds of miles, sleeping on the floors of schoolhouse libraries and riding in sleds and on snowmobiles. To aid the reporting, they also held a community meeting in Kotzebue, Alaska, where a 10-year-old girl had been raped and murdered in 2018, providing residents, advocates, tribal leaders and law enforcement their first chance for a public discussion on sexual violence. Throughout the year the reporters spoke to more than 300 people across the state.

Following publication of the first major story, U.S. Attorney General William Barr visited the state and declared the lack of law enforcement in rural Alaska to be a federal emergency. The declaration led the Department of Justice to promise more than $52 million in federal funding for public safety in Alaska villages. The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Anchorage announced the hiring of additional rural prosecutors, while Gov. Mike Dunleavy said the state will post 15 additional state troopers in rural Alaska. In addition, the Alaska Police Standards Council has proposed changing state regulations that govern the hiring and screening of village police officers, and Alaska legislators proposed legislation that would increase pay for VPSOs and overhaul funding of the program.

The Daily News’ Loren Holmes, Bill Roth, Marc Lester, David Hulen, Anne Raup, Vicky Ho, Alex Demarban, Jeff Parrott, Michelle Theriault Boots, Tess Williams, Tegan Hanlon, Zaz Hollander, Annie Zak, Shady Grove Oliver and Kevin Powell, as well as ProPublica’s Charles Ornstein, Adriana Gallardo, Alex Mierjeski, Beena Raghavendran, Nadia Sussman, Lylla Younes, Agnel Philip, Setareh Baig and David Sleight also contributed to the series.

“The ProPublica Local Reporting Network was started to give local newsrooms across America the resources and support they need to execute investigative journalism that digs deep and holds power to account,” Ornstein, a ProPublica deputy managing editor, said. “This powerful collaboration with the Anchorage Daily News investigation does exactly that, going far beyond reporting on isolated incidents to provide meticulous research and context on how the justice system has failed Alaska’s most remote and vulnerable communities. Most importantly, it has been a force for real change.”

In their “Disaster in the Pacific” series, ProPublica reporters T. Christian Miller, Megan Rose and Robert Faturechi centered on three deadly accidents in the Navy and Marines in 2017 and 2018. They exposed America’s vaunted 7th Fleet as being in crisis with broken ships and planes, poor training for and multiple warnings ignored by its commanders. The costs: 17 dead sailors in crashes involving Navy warships, and six Marines killed in a training accident.

The back-to-back accidents in 2017 and 2018 gained initial attention from Congress and the national media, but they had been told an incomplete, misleading and dangerous story of half-truths and cover-ups. ProPublica’s series provided the first full accounting of culpability, tracing responsibility to the highest uniformed and civilian ranks of the Navy. The reporting team spent 18 months on the investigation, obtaining more than 13,000 pages of confidential Navy records and interviewing hundreds of officials up and down the chain-of-command.

The first article in the series, “Fight the Ship,” reconstructed a 2017 crash involving the USS Fitzgerald, one of the deadliest accidents in the history of the Navy. The story showed that the accident was entirely preventable, and that the Navy’s senior leadership had endangered the warship by sending a shorthanded and undertrained crew to sea with outdated and poorly maintained equipment. To show readers what happened, ProPublica hired designer Xaquín G.V. Working with investigations producer Lucas Waldron, Xaquín used geodata on the ships’ locations, mapped the path of each vessel and created a graphic that simulated the crash, down to the moment the Fitzgerald was sent spinning out of control, rotating 360 degrees. The team also collected radar images, ship blueprints, hand-drawn images made by surviving sailors and video taken inside the ship, which allowed them to portray the disaster from the perspective of the sailors onboard.

A second story, “Years of Warnings, Then Death and Disaster,” detailed how the fatal crash of the USS Fitzgerald, and of the USS McCain weeks later, were the result of a congressional gutting of the Navy and the Navy’s prioritization of building new ships. Top Navy officials gave urgent, repeated warnings to Navy Secretary Ray Mabus about the deadly risks facing its fleet, including being short of sailors, sailors poorly trained and worked to exhaustion, warships physically coming apart, and ships routinely failing tests to see if they were prepared to handle warfighting duties. They were ignored, told to be quiet or even ordered to resign.

Another story captured the Marine Corps multiple failures that were responsible for the deaths of six men in a nighttime training exercise 15,000 feet above the Pacific — an accident that senior leaders had been warned was possible, even likely. ProPublica created an animated short documentary, using a combination of an on-camera interview, 3D animation, 2D illustration and atmospheric footage to bring the excruciating hours of a needless tragedy to light. Through extensive interviews with eyewitnesses, the team reconstructed the moments leading up to the crash, the crash itself and the botched search and rescue effort.

The series also illuminated how the Navy’s reckless management of the 7th Fleet was measured not only in fatalities, but also in the hurt and shame of the rank-and-file sailors whom the Navy blamed and prosecuted for the accidents. The Navy’s prosecution of Navy Cmdr. Bryce Benson for what were clearly systemic shortcomings, traceable all the way to the Pentagon, left many of its own furious and demoralized.

Weeks after the first story’s publication, the House Armed Services Committee convened a panel to challenge senior Navy leaders over their claims that they had been fully truthful about its failings and its efforts at reform. The reporting forced the Navy to admit to Congress that its claims about its rate of progress on reform were misleading. In light of ProPublica’s reporting on the improper role that the Navy’s top commander played in the prosecution of Benson, one of captains on the USS Fitzgerald, the Navy dropped all criminal charges. U.S. and NATO Navy commands throughout the world have ordered sailors and officers to read the ProPublica accounts as part of training and education.

Joseph Sexton, Tracy Weber, Agnes Chang, Katie Campbell, Joe Singer, Kengo Tsutsumi, Ruth Baron, David Sleight, Sisi Wei, Claire Perlman, Joshua Hunt and Nate Schweber also contributed to this series.

“The Navy actively blocked reporting at every step, with communications officers attempting to dissuade officials from conducting interviews with ProPublica and leaking positive stories to competing media outlets in an attempt to front-run our stories,” ProPublica Managing Editor Robin Fields said. “The military even threatened that we could be criminally prosecuted for publishing the material we obtained. This tour de force of investigative journalism is a testament to the unflinching tenacity of the reporters and the innovation of ProPublica’s data, graphics, research and design teams. Their essential work laid bare the avoidance of responsibility by the military’s most senior leaders.”