All Nippon Airways Co. Ltd. (ANA) has agreed to plead guilty and to pay a $73 million criminal fine for its role in two separate conspiracies to fix prices in the air transportation industry.

Benjamin Haskell was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Michael A. Ponsor in Springfield, Mass., to nine years in prison and three years of supervised release for his role in the 2008 burning of the Macedonia Church of God in Christ, a predominately African-American Church, on the morning after President Barack Obama was elected as the first African-American President of the United States.

Axel Rafael Mercado pleaded guilty to one count of tax evasion before U.S. District Court Judge Patricia A. Seitz in the Southern District of Florida.

An Atlanta grand jury returned an indictment today against the former president and chief executive officer of a Lakewood, N.J.-based manufacturer and distributor of food service equipment hardware, for conspiring to allocate customers for the sale of commercial and institutional food service equipment hardware.

James Bradley Branscum, Tony Branscum, both of Salado, Ark., and Curtis Coffee of Batesville, Ark., were indicted this week by a federal grand jury on charges related to their roles in burning a cross in the yard of an African-American resident in Salado on Aug. 28, 2010.

Victor Manuel Amaya was sentenced to two years in prison for employment tax fraud.

The Department of Justice has scheduled three public hearings on its regulatory proposals concerning the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

The United States has asked a federal court in Chicago to permanently bar John E. Rogers, a Chicago tax lawyer and former partner at Seyfarth Shaw LLP, from promoting tax shelters that allegedly use distressed Brazilian debt to illegally lower customers’ reported income.

Gregory Mussmacher was convicted by a jury in May 2010 for physically abusing a juvenile in his custody and for obstructing justice to cover up what he had done.

Ilya Sobolevskiy, a 25-year-old resident of Maryland, was sentenced today to serve 12 months in prison and to pay a $3,000 fine for violating the civil rights of members of an Urbana, Ill., mosque, announced the Justice Department.

A global freight forwarding company, as well as five oil and gas service companies and subsidiaries, have all agreed to resolve investigations of Foreign Corrupt Practices Act violations.

Offshore Vessels LLC (OSV) was sentenced to pay a criminal fine of $1,750,000 and remit a payment of $350,000 as community service to the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation.

"One concrete and very direct result of the Justice Department’s participation in the Task Force is that we have forged and fostered strong relationships with our partners in the fight against financial fraud," said Assistant Attorney General Breuer.

Today, Department of Justice Attorney General Eric Holder and Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius visited Brooklyn, N.Y., where they participated in the third Regional Health Care Fraud Prevention Summit.

Brooke E. Reyna, 28, of Barrington, N.H., pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Joseph N. Laplante in U.S. District Court for the District of New Hampshire to making false statements.

Robert Jackson, 37, of Ruston, La., was sentenced to 12 months in federal prison for placing a hangman’s noose under the carport of the home of a Honduran immigrant who moved to Ruston from New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Gary Lee Rimmer, 56, was indicted in June 2010 and charged with one count of possession of child pornography and one count of distribution of child pornography.

Harold James Nicholson, 59, appeared before U.S. District Judge Anna J. Brown and pleaded guilty to the crimes of conspiracy to act as an agent of a foreign government and conspiracy to commit international money laundering.

Steven W. Allen, a practicing attorney from Mesa, Ariz., and Allen Goodmansen, a certified public accountant, also from Mesa, were sentenced to prison for tax fraud by Phoenix federal district court Judge Roslyn O. Silver.

“In January 2008, Attorney General Michael Mukasey appointed Assistant United States Attorney John Durham to investigate the destruction by CIA personnel of videotapes of detainee interrogations," said Matthew Miller, Director, Office of Public Affairs.

The Justice Department and Hilton Worldwide Inc. today announced a comprehensive, precedent-setting agreement under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) that will make state-of-the-art accessibility changes to approximately 900 hotels nationwide.

Remy Heath, aka “Remy,” “King Remy,” and “King Mellow,” 26, of Hyattsville, Md., pleaded guilty today to conspiracy to participate in a racketeering enterprise, in connection with his gang activities as a member and leader of the Almighty Latin King and Queen Nation.

St. Joseph Medical Center has agreed to pay the United States $22 million to settle allegations under the False Claims Act that it paid unlawful remuneration under the Anti-Kickback Act and violated the Stark Law when it entered into a series of professional services contracts with MidAtlantic Cardiovascular Associates.

Richard Chu, a former "VIP host" at Pure Nightclub located in Caesars Palace Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, pleaded guilty in federal court to one count of filing a false federal income tax return for the 2006 tax year.

The Justice Department reached a settlement agreement with the University of South Carolina to resolve an investigation into the university’s policies and procedures related to discrimination and harassment.

Gerald Diodati, 61, of Seekonk, Mass., pleaded guilty today before Chief U.S. District Judge Mary M. Lisi to one count of tax evasion.

CFP Group, located in McLean, Va., and its president, Roberto Clark, have agreed to pay the United States $150,000 to settle claims that they used false statements to obtain a contract from the Department of Veterans Affairs.

The Justice Department today announced that Harry Norman Realtors (HNR) and Jennifer Sherrouse have agreed to pay monetary damages and civil penalties of $60,000 to settle a Fair Housing Act lawsuit alleging that they discriminated against families with children.

Kevin Shaffer of Sarasota, Fla., and Washington D.C., pleaded guilty to bank fraud and tax evasion before Alexandria, Va., federal district court Judge Gerald Bruce Lee.

Todd M. Gongwer, of Columbus, Ohio, was sentenced today to two years in prison for conspiring with convicted Columbus area home builder Thomas Parenteau to commit a mortgage fraud scheme in which the pair defrauded banks into lending more than $10 million to Gongwer, his nominees and unqualified borrowers.

"Tonight, it is clear that the spirit of justice that motivated Justice Ortique still burns brightly," said Attorney General Holder.

The United States has filed a lawsuit seeking to stop Aurelia Sanderson Johnson of Montgomery, Ala., from preparing tax returns for others.

U.S. District Court Judge Ellis sentenced Eric Jon Eisenhower, a resident of Fairfax Station, Va., to 19 months in prison and ordered him to pay $88,826.79 in restitution to the IRS.

A federal grand jury indicted three men in Albuquerque, N.M., on federal hate crime charges related to a racially-motivated assault of a 22-year-old man of Navajo descent who has a significant cognitive impairment.

According to court testimony and documents, Dennis G. Sartain of Hilliard, Ohio, was the accountant for convicted Columbus-area home builder, Thomas Parenteau.

The Department of Justice and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) today announced additional details for the Dec. 8, 2010, public workshop in Washington, which will examine the issue of margins at various levels of the agricultural supply chain.

A jury in Rochester, N.Y., convicted Keith Gordon-Smith, and his Rochester-based asbestos abatement company, Gordon-Smith Contracting, Inc. (GSCI) of eight counts of knowing violations of the Clean Air Act asbestos work practice standards.

The Department of Justice, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the state of Rhode Island announced today that Bouchard Transportation Co. Inc. and its affiliates will pay more than $6 million to settle a portion of the federal and state natural resource damages claims for the April 2003 spill of up to 98,000 gallons of oil into Buzzards Bay.

The Justice Department today made available online the 2010 ADA Standards for Accessible Design (2010 Standards or Standards).

Today a federal jury in Washington convicted Kevin A. Ring, a former lobbyist who worked with Jack A. Abramoff, on five counts related to a scheme to corrupt public officials by providing a stream of things of value.

"I am deeply honored by your invitation to be with you today and to share with you some of the work in which we have been engaged at the Department of Justice to improve life in Indian Country," said Assistant Attorney General West.

An Atlanta grand jury returned an indictment today against a former executive of Japan Airlines International Co. Ltd. (JAL) and two former executives of Nippon Cargo Airlines Co. Ltd. for participating in a conspiracy to fix and coordinate components of rates for air cargo shipments to and from the United States.

John Michael Carter, 42, pleaded guilty on Aug. 5, 2010, in U.S. District Court in the Western District of Virginia to one count of transportation of child pornography, one count of receipt of child pornography and one count of possession of child pornography.

Jeffery Leon Ceaser, a resident of Montgomery, Ala., pleaded guilty to one count of conspiring to defraud the United States and one count of identity theft.

"The Justice Department is firmly committed to investigating and prosecuting foreign bribery wherever it occurs – because rooting out foreign bribery matters," said Assistant Attorney General Breuer.

After more than two years of legal proceedings, alleged international arms dealer Viktor Bout has been extradited to the Southern District of New York from Thailand to stand trial on terrorism charges.

Four student aid lenders have paid the United States a total of $57.75 million to resolve allegations that they improperly inflated their entitlement to certain interest rate subsidies from the U.S. Department of Education in violation of the False Claims Act.

Fang Ping Ding was sentenced in federal court late yesterday to 37 months in prison for confiscating the passport, visa and other documents of a woman from the People’s Republic of China in order to maintain control over the victim and force her to work as an unpaid, live-in domestic servant.

The owner of a Langhorne, Penn., asbestos abatement company pleaded guilty to participating in a conspiracy to defraud the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

Juan Javier Cardenas of Miami was sentenced today in the Southern District of Florida to 121 months in prison for buying, trafficking and possessing stolen credit card information.