A federal court today issued a preliminary injunction barring Karen Liane Miller of Nashville, Tenn., from preparing federal income tax returns for others.

Walter Kendall Myers, 72, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit espionage and two counts of wire fraud. His wife, Gwendolyn Steingraber Myers, 71, pleaded guilty to a conspiracy to gather and transmit national defense information.

“This officer abandoned his law enforcement role and engaged in a bizarre scheme to target innocent victims for his own personal gain. Officers who abuse their power in this way will be prosecuted to the fullest extent the law allows,” said Assistant Attorney General Thomas E. Perez of the Civil Rights Division.

A federal jury in Indianapolis convicted William Travis Brown on July 23, 2009, of one count of transportation and one count of possession of child pornography.

The former general manager of a Sugar Land, Texas-based business was arrested on Nov. 18, 2009, for his alleged role in a conspiracy to bribe Mexican government officials to secure contracts with the Comisión Federal de Electridad (CFE), a Mexican state-owned utility company.

According to the charging documents, the offenses include providing financial support to those who traveled to Somalia to fight on behalf of al-Shabaab, a designated foreign terrorist organization; attending terrorist training camps operated by al-Shabaab; and fighting on behalf of al-Shabaab.

“The right to worship without fear of this kind of violent interference is among our most fundamental civil rights,” said Thomas E. Perez, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division.

Joshua Ryan Jones and Roger Forrester, former corrections officers at the Northwest Correctional Complex in Tiptonville, Tenn., pleaded guilty today to violating the civil rights of an inmate and then lying about it during state and federal investigations.

A criminal complaint, unsealed today, charged Dani Nemr Tarraf with conspiring to acquire anti-aircraft missiles (FIM-92 Stingers) and conspiring to possess machine guns (approximately 10,000 Colt M4 Carbines).

The lawsuit alleges that Terence Flanagan refused to rent a single-family house he owns in Orland Park, Ill., to Kamal Alex Majeid, who is African-American, because of his race.

Jacques Monsieur, a Belgian national and resident of France suspected of international arms dealing for decades, pleaded guilty today in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Alabama to conspiracy to illegally export F-5 fighter jet engines and parts from the Untied States to Iran.

Robert Restuch, 70, of Bullhead City, Ariz., was sentenced today to five years in prison for mailing child pornography.

Febe Durango-Rueda, 52, a Colombian national, pleaded guilty on Nov. 20, 2009, to participating in a scheme to defraud the Export-Import Bank of the United States (Ex-Im Bank) of more than $1 million.

The complex tax scheme involved numerous entities located around the globe and sales of over $1.25 billion in securities

Ten individuals were indicted today, charged with, among other things, conspiring to export weapons from Philadelphia to the Port of Latakia, Syria.

Six individuals were sentenced today in federal court in Detroit for their roles in a wide-ranging international stock fraud scheme involving the illegal use of bulk commercial e-mails, or "spamming."

The department said the transaction, as originally proposed, would substantially lessen competition in infectious waste collection and treatment services to hospitals and other critical healthcare facilities.

The department will monitor polling place activities for compliance with the Voting Rights Act of 1965 during the Dec. 1, 2009, municipal run-off election in Union Point, Ga.

Mack Gordon Harris Sr., 67, of Social Circle, Ga., pleaded guilty today to transporting a minor for illegal sexual activity.

Both detainees are the subject of outstanding arrest warrants in Italy and will be prosecuted there.

The department filed a lawsuit in federal court in West Virginia alleging that MasTec Advanced Technologies willfully violated the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act of 1994 by discriminating against a U.S. Army Reserve member on the basis of his military service and by failing to offer Burress an appropriate reemployment position when he returned from military service.

A federal grand jury in Greensboro, N.C., returned an indictment today charging a poultry processor and a plant manager with multiple violations of the Clean Water Act for illegally discharging wastewater from its Raeford, N.C., based facility

Late last night, Sabir Lahmar, a native of Algeria, was transferred to the government of France.

Late last night, a detainee originally from the West Bank was transferred to the government of Hungary.

Michael Parker of Baltimore, who was the chief operating officer of TransCapital Corporation, a tax-advantaged investments company based in Northen Virginia, pleaded guilty today to one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States.

The department announced today that it has entered into a consent decree with the Newark Public Schools (NPS) that will resolve its lawsuit on behalf of George Lawton, a naval reservist, against NPS alleging it violated the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act of 1994 (USERRA).

The Kerlan Jobe Orthopaedic Clinic, a sports medicine clinic in Los Angeles, has agreed to pay the United States $3 million to settle allegations that it received illegal kickbacks from HealthSouth Corporation.

The department has filed papers seeking a federal court order authorizing the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to serve a “John Doe summons” on Ralph Janvey, the court-appointed receiver of the Stanford Group Company (SGC) and related entities.

John L. Cockerham, 43, a major in the U.S. Army, was sentenced to 210 months in prison.

“We must engage the broadest spectrum of community partners in order to stem youth violence, and a cornerstone of that partnership is young people themselves,” said Attorney General Holder. “The Department of Justice is committed to working with young people to develop innovative solutions to help prevent teen dating abuse.”

Two Bulgarian nationals have been sentenced in U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia for their roles as money launderers for a transnational criminal group based in Eastern Europe, announced Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer of the Criminal Division.

Cardale Leon Bates of Birmingham, Ala., was sentenced to 57 months in prison today by U.S. District Court Judge L. Scott Coogler.

A federal court in Boston issued a judgment against Excel Home Care Inc. in the amount of $473,510.76 for unpaid federal employment and unemployment taxes after its owner Diane E. Porter consented to the entry of an order of permanent injunction that prohibits her or anyone else from operating this Tewksbury, Mass., home health care provider.

A Chicago man who was arrested in October for planning terrorist attacks against a Danish newspaper and two of its employees is alleged to have also conducted extensive surveillance of targets in Mumbai for more than two years preceding the November 2008 terrorist attack on India’s largest city that killed approximately 170 people, including six Americans, and injured hundreds more.

The Department released a new video aimed at educating employers about worker rights and employer responsibilities under the anti-discrimination provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act.

Thomas Howard Blue Sr., Thomas Howard Blue Jr. and Judson Hartley Talbert pleaded guilty today in federal court in Florence, S.C., to charges relating to the assault of an African-American man and two white men in December 2007.

Two Florida executives of a Miami-Dade County-based telecommunications company, the president of Florida-based Telecom Consulting Services Corp., and two former Haitian government officials were charged in an indictment unsealed today for their alleged roles in a foreign bribery, wire fraud and money laundering scheme.

The United States has reached a $6.75 million settlement with Itochu Corp. of Japan and its American subsidiary, Itochu International Inc., to resolve claims under the False Claims Act in connection with the companies’ importation and sale of defective Zylon fiber used as the key ballistic material in bullet-proof vests purchased by the United States for federal, state, local and tribal law enforcement agencies.

A Washington, D.C., fish wholesaler and two of its employees have been charged in U.S. District Court in Maryland for the purchase of illegally harvested striped bass, commonly referred to as rockfish, from the Potomac River from 1995 through 2007.

“Over the past thirteen years, the parties have tried to settle this case many, many times, each time unsuccessfully,” said Attorney General Holder.

Clement Calhoun of Cherokee, N.C., pleaded guilty today in U.S. District Court in Asheville, N.C., to federal charges for unlawfully trafficking in bear gall bladders.

Jacob Wingo, Clayton Morrison, Darren McKim and Richard Robins were sentenced today and yesterday in federal court in Hot Springs, Ark., on federal civil rights and obstruction of justice charges related to a conspiracy to drive a woman and her children from their home in Donaldson, Ark., because the victims associated with African-Americans.

Curtis Whiteford, a former colonel in the U.S. Army Reserves, was sentenced today to five years in prison for his participation in a wide-ranging bribery conspiracy in Al-Hillah, Iraq.

As a result of the new format, members of the public, including public interest organizations, scholars, and the media, will be able to more easily track FOIA performance.

Kevin M. Young, 42, was sentenced today to 12 months of probation for illegally accessing more than 125 confidential passport application files. Young was also ordered by U.S. Magistrate Judge Alan Kay in the District of Columbia to perform 100 hours of community service.

Polembros Shipping LTD., a ship management company headquartered in Greece, was sentenced today in federal court in New Orleans to pay a $2.7 million criminal fine for violating anti-pollution laws, ship safety laws, and making false statements during a U.S. Coast Guard investigation of the M/V Theotokos, the Justice Department announced.

Companies directly affected by the LCD price-fixing conspiracy are some of the largest computer and television manufacturers in the world, including Apple, Dell and HP.

A federal grand jury in Atlanta has indicted an Ellenwood, Ga., husband and wife, Juna Gwendolyn Babb, 54, and Michael J. Babb, 53, on charges of conspiracy, forced labor, document servitude, which is confiscating someone’s passport and visa, and harboring an alien for financial gain, the Justice Department announced.

Fouad Mahmoud al-Rabiah, a Kuwaiti national, has been transferred from the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay to the control of the government of Kuwait.

“Our nation’s civil rights laws ensure that every individual can go to work each day without fear of discrimination based on the color of their skin,” said Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez.