The Department of Justice today announced that a federal grand jury sitting in Milwaukee has indicted Najee C. Moore, 22, on charges of conspiracy, sex trafficking and attempted forced labor, of both minor and adult victims.

"Although we will never completely eliminate the criminal element that menaces our communities – and threatens far too many innocent lives – your actions, and the heroism we celebrate tonight, give me great confidence in our ability to keep moving forward in addressing these threats and building the brighter future our citizens deserve," said Attorney General Holder.

Attorney General Eric Holder and Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced today that a nationwide takedown by Medicare Fraud Strike Force operations in eight cities has resulted in charges against 89 individuals, including doctors, nurses and other licensed medical professionals, for their alleged participation in Medicare fraud schemes involving approximately $223 million in false billings.

As a result of Strike Force operations conducted since 2007, we’ve filed charges against more than 1,500 individuals in connection with schemes involving over $5 billion in false billings.

Two Alabama real estate investors and their company were sentenced today in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Alabama in Mobile, for their participation in conspiracies to rig bids and commit mail fraud at public real estate foreclosure auctions in southern Alabama.

A Pennsylvania man was sentenced today to serve 12 years in prison for coercing and enticing a minor and possessing child pornography.

A forfeiture judgment was executed today against real property with an estimated value of more than $700,000 in Rockville, Md., that had been purchased with corruption proceeds traceable to Diepreye Solomon Peter Alamieyeseigha, a former Governor of Bayelsa State, Nigeria.

Thanks to my dedicated colleagues – the nearly 116,000 employees serving in offices around the world – in recent years, the Department has made tremendous progress in protecting the safety, and the sacred rights, of the American people. Nowhere is this clearer than in our work to ensure America’s national security.

It is estimated that more than 1.7 million children currently have a parent in prison, and many more have parents who are in local jails or lock-ups at any given time. As we’ve heard today, addressing these children’s needs requires a coordinated effort of multiple government agencies and social service entities to implement collaborative approaches. This Administration is committed to providing support to children of incarcerated parents and their caregivers.

The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio found United Technologies Corporation liable for over $473 million in damages and penalties arising out of a contract to provide the Air Force with fighter aircraft engines for F-15 and F-16 aircraft between 1985 and 1990.

A corrections officer at the Stone County Regional Correctional Facility in Stone County, Miss., was sentenced today to serve one year in federal prison and ordered to pay restitution of $6,000 for ordering the beating of an inmate at the detention facility in violation of federal civil rights laws.

A jury in El Paso, Texas, today convicted Keith Nicholas Aiken, 31, of making false statements to law enforcement while serving as a civilian military employee stationed in Afghanistan.

The former chief executive officer and former chief financial officer of ArthroCare Corp., a publicly traded medical device company based in Austin, Texas, were charged for their alleged leading roles in a $400 million scheme to defraud the company’s shareholders and members of the investing public by falsely inflating ArthroCare’s earnings by tens of millions of dollars, announced Acting Assistant Attorney Mythili Raman of the Department of Justice’s Criminal Division and U.S. Attorney Robert Pitman of the Western District of Texas.

The United States entered into a settlement agreement with the Arcadia Unified School District in Arcadia, Calif., to resolve an investigation into allegations of discrimination against a transgender student based on the student’s sex.

The Justice Department announced today that the Executive Director of the Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force (FFETF) Michael Bresnick will be leaving the department on Thursday, August 1, 2013.

Paul S. Kruse, 60, of Jacksonville, Fla., was sentenced late yesterday to serve 30 years in prison for wire fraud, wire fraud conspiracy, attempting to murder a government witness and murder-for-hire.

The Justice Department announced today that it has reached a cooperative settlement agreement with the city of Henderson, Nev. under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

Christian Fernando Borda, a major narcotics trafficker aligned with paramilitary groups in Colombia, was sentenced today to serve 25 years in prison for conspiring to import ton-quantities of cocaine into the United States, announced Acting Assistant Attorney General Mythili Raman of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division and Administrator Michele M. Leonhart of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).

These three principles — data-driven innovation, effective collaboration, and meaningful reentry — certainly are not the only approaches to smarter policing in this new century, but they are important as we continue to build the bridge to justice and equality in this challenging climate of contraction, subtraction, and sequestration.

The Justice Department and U.S. Attorney for the District of Delaware Charles M. Oberly III announced today the filing of a lawsuit alleging that Regal Contractors LLC, Regal Builders LLC and Noble Pond Homes willfully violated the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act of 1994 (USERRA) by terminating U.S. Air Force Reserve Member Lon Fluman following his return from required military training with his reserve unit.

Attorney General Eric Holder and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan today announced research findings showing that, on average, inmates who participated in correctional education programs had 43 percent lower odds of returning to prison than inmates who did not.

Each of these brave men and women displayed a profound love of country that must always be appreciated. It is to these people that we owe the greatest debt – Americans of all races, genders, ethnicities, sexual orientations, and backgrounds who risked everything in order that their fellow citizens, and their children, might truly be free.

Attorney General Eric Holder announced today that the Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) will provide $2.5 million in funding to the Connecticut State Police, the Newtown, Conn., Police Department and their partner agencies that provided assistance in response to the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School last year.

Tammy Dickinson, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Missouri, and Jocelyn Samuels, Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, announced that an Independence, Mo., man and woman pleaded guilty in federal court today to violating the civil rights of an African-American family by setting fire to their residence.

Today, the U.S. Department of Justice announced an update to its federal marijuana enforcement policy in light of recent state ballot initiatives that legalize, under state law, the possession of small amounts of marijuana and provide for the regulation of marijuana production, processing, and sale.

Jocelyn Samuels, Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division and Anne M. Tompkins, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of North Carolina, announced today that former North Carolina Department of Correction’s Division of Community Corrections Probation Officer Willie James Steele Jr., 43, has been sentenced for violating the constitutional rights of a female probationer that he was supervising by coercing her into sexual acts on two separate occasions.

We come together today because we’re still striving, as they once did, to realize the dream that Dr. King shared with us 50 years ago last month – on the steps of a memorial to America’s Great Emancipator – when he spoke of an Alabama where children of all races and backgrounds would be able to play together, to learn together, and to grow together.

The Macalan Group Inc., formerly known as NEK Advanced Securities Inc. (NEK), a security contractor headquartered in Colorado Springs, Colo., has agreed to resolve allegations that it submitted false claims in connection with a contract with the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization (JIEDDO).

Michael D. Hayden Jr., 41, of Tilghman’s Island, Md., was arrested yesterday on charges of witness tampering and retaliation in connection with an investigation of felony Lacey Act violations related to the illegal harvesting of striped bass from the Chesapeake Bay.

Total Petrochemical USA Inc. (Total) will pay an $8.75 million penalty for failing to comply with the terms of a 2007 settlement with the United States that resolved alleged violations of the Clean Air Act at its Port Arthur, Texas, refinery, the Department of Justice and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced today.

The Justice Department today announced an enhanced online resource designed to support American victims of overseas terrorism.

There were more than a dozen separate conspiracies each operating independently but all targeting the U.S. automotive industry. Some of the price-fixing conspiracies lasted for a decade or longer, and many car models were fitted with multiple parts that were fixed by the auto parts suppliers.

The U.S. Department of Justice Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) today announced funding awards to 263 cities and counties, aimed at creating 937 law enforcement positions. More than $125 million will be awarded nationally, including nearly $45 million to fund 356 new school resource officer positions.

Attorney General Eric Holder announced today that the Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) will provide $150,000 in Fiscal Year 2013 funding to Newtown, Conn., to fund two positions to ensure school safety, such as school resource officers.

Today, I am pleased to be in Detroit to announce that – in addition to our ongoing enforcement of antitrust and consumer protection laws – as part of the Obama Administration’s commitment to supporting the City of Detroit, the Justice Department will take a variety of actions to provide direct assistance to city leaders and local law enforcement authorities in order to improve public safety throughout the metropolitan area.

A Georgia real estate investor and his company pleaded guilty today for their role in conspiracies to rig bids and commit mail fraud at public real estate foreclosure auctions in Georgia.

The Civil Rights Division and U.S. Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz announced today the filing of a complaint alleging that the International Association of Bridge, Structural, Ornamental and Reinforcing Iron Workers Local 7 (the union) and Iron Workers District Council of New England Pension Fund (the Pension Fund) willfully violated the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act of 1994 (USERRA) by failing to credit U.S. Navy Reserve Member Thomas Shea with service time while he was serving in the armed forces in Afghanistan.

A federal grand jury in Albuquerque, N.M., has returned a one-count indictment charging former Belen Police Department Detective John Lytle with unlawfully assaulting a victim, identified in the indictment as R.A., during an investigative stop and arrest on March 15, 2012.

The alleged leader of a Mexican narcotics trafficking organization responsible for trafficking multi-ton quantities of cocaine, Juan Juarez Orosco, aka “El Abuelo,” was extradited to the United States from Panama on Nov. 8, 2013, and arraigned on Nov. 10, 2013, before U.S. Magistrate Judge Lois Bloom in the Eastern District of New York.

Attorney General Eric Holder today announced the first public hearing of a new task force to examine the impact of exposure to violence on American Indian and Alaska Native children. Joining President Obama and other officials at the Department of the Interior for the White House Tribal Nations Conference, Attorney General Holder shared the announcement with leaders from the 566 federally recognized tribes and emphasized the Justice Department’s long-standing collaboration with leaders in American Indian and Alaska Native communities to improve public safety.

As all of you know, banking and financial services play a vital role in our country. They spawn growth, spread risk, facilitate the creation of jobs, and generally drive our economy. Without it, much of the prosperity that allows for our freedoms and our power in the world would not exist.

Four commercial fishermen and one company were indicted yesterday by a federal grand jury in Baltimore for a criminal conspiracy involving the illegal harvesting and interstate sale of striped bass on the Chesapeake Bay.

Twenty Detroit-area residents have been charged for their roles in physician home visit, home health care, chiropractic and psychotherapy schemes to submit more than $34 million in false billing to Medicare.

The Attorney General’s Advisory Committee of the Task Force on American Indian/Alaska Native Children Exposed to Violence held its first public hearing today in Bismarck, N.D., convening tribal researchers, advocates and local community members to discuss domestic violence and child physical and sexual abuse in Indian Country.

The U.S. Department of Justice today hosted a meeting to launch a joint task force between the United Kingdom and the United States to counter online child exploitation

One of the world’s most prolific cybercriminals was sentenced today to serve 18 years in prison for his role in co-founding the notorious website CarderPlanet. At the time of his arrest, Vega possessed more than half a million stolen credit card numbers

I know it hasn’t always been easy to be related to such a renowned, respected, and dedicated public servant – whose passion for the law, and determination to help his country address the toughest legal challenges, has often kept him at the office late into the night – and made him absent from too many family dinners and special occasions.

The U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) today announced appointments to a newly created National Commission on Forensic Science.

Three men from Tennessee were arrested today for offenses related to their involvement in sex trafficking adult victims to New Orleans as charged in a five-count indictment dated Dec. 20, 2013, and unsealed today by Chief Judge Sarah S. Vance of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana, announced the Justice Department’s and U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Louisiana.

The Justice Department’s Medicare Fraud Strike Force has set record numbers for health care prosecutions in Fiscal Year 2013, demonstrating the targeted and coordinated approach remains strong as the strike force enters its eighth year of fighting fraud against the government’s health care programs.