There are 94 federal court districts in the United States. More than half of those districts do not have Senate-confirmed U.S. attorneys. Seven of the 10 largest cities in the country don't have a confirmed U.S. attorney, according to a June 1 Bloomberg Law analysis in U.S. Law Week. President J...
Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer credits his county's AB 109 Crime Impact Task Force for arresting more than 567 repeat offenders who had been released early under the California Public Safety Realignment Act (AB 109). Passed in 2011, the act allows the incarceration and early releas...
Police escorted a Modesto man off a Jet Blue aircraft the morning of June 1 when the plane landed at Logan International Airport in Boston. The FBI arrested him on charges of two counts of “abusive sexual contact while in the special aircraft jurisdiction of the United States,” according to June ...
In separate incidents, two high school students and a 44-year-old man have been arrested for making bomb threats and mass-shooting students, reported U.S. News on June 1. The man, a Blackwell, Oklahoma, resident, allegedly phoned in repeated threats in February and April to two elementary, two m...
A federal grand jury in Sacramento has indicted a 27-year-old Northern California man for possession with intent to sell counterfeit prescription pills laced with fentanyl. He was also charged with dealing in firearms without a license and two counts of possession of fully automatic AR-15 style m...
Although cannabis (aka marijuana) is illegal under federal law, the U.S. Attorney's Office opted to prosecute a prominent cannabis entrepreneur in San Luis Obispo for bribery and tax evasion. Cannabis cultivation is legal in California. Facing a statutory maximum penalty of 13 years, the wealthy...
According to the Treatment Advocacy Center, people with severe mental issues like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder are ten times more likely to be in jail or prison than in a psychiatric facility. The U.S. Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) says, “About 43% of state and...
Repeat Offender Gets Almost 9 Years After being caught three times in four months with loaded firearms, a 30-year-old Vacaville man was sentenced on May 3 in U.S. District Court in Sacramento to eight years and ten months in federal prison. Although he was caught with firearms, he was charged a...
Facing Life in Prison, $10 Million Fine Confronted with overwhelming evidence gathered by a task force of a dozen federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies, a 38-year-old Bakersfield man known as "Spider" pleaded guilty in federal court in Fresno on May 2 to conspiracy to distribute met...
Ex-HP Employee Forfeits Ill-gotten Assets A former finance planning manager for HP Inc. in Palo Alto pleaded guilty on March 23 to wire fraud, money laundering, and false IRS filings amounting to $5.2 million, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of California. Sente...
Ordered to Pay Half Million to AmEx Known by the moniker “Million Dollar,” a Los Angeles man was sentenced in late January to four years in federal prison for identity theft and credit card fraud, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Central District of California. U.S. District Judge...
Caught on Gun Shop Surveillance Footage A San Diego was arraigned on March 1 on federal charges of theft of firearms and being a felon in possession of firearms. According to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of California, the defendant allegedly broke into a federally licens...
Faces Federal Charges for Cyberstalking A married, active-duty Marine Corps lance corporal stationed at Camp Pendleton was arrested on February 8 for an alleged "sextortion." He is accused of cyberstalking attractive young women, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Central District o...
In a case stretching back more than a decade, the IRS reported on February 24 that a federal jury in Virginia convicted two men of a nationwide fraud scheme that bilked elderly investors of more than $20 million. Of the two, a 78-year-old man from Scottsdale, Arizona, is facing the tougher sente...
Leap for Freedom in Rhode Island Fails A Modesto, California, man has been arrested in Rhode Island on charges of being a convicted felon in possession of firearms, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office (USAO) for the District of Rhode Island. On February 16, the Special Investigations Unit (...
A Lancaster, California man was arrested by the FBI in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on February 18 for allegedly interfering with the flight crew. The defendant was a passenger on Southwest Airlines Flight 474 from Dallas to Burbank, California. The FBI "probable cause" criminal complaint states the...
A South Los Angeles Man pleaded guilty on August 30 last summer in U.S. District Court to one count of transportation of explosives without a license, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office of the Central District of California. He faces a maximum sentence of 10 years, but WPMT Fox 43 reported o...
Declared Incompetent to Stand Trial After a years-long series of court hearings, a Northern California man has been sent to Napa State Hospital to undergo involuntary antipsychotic medication treatment for the next two years or until it is determined he is competent to stand trial for alleged ki...
A federal grand jury indicted three young men on February 3 for allegedly committing six smash-and-grab, daylight robberies of cell phone stores in Los Angeles and Ventura counties. Two of the men, allegedly wielding hammers, are accused of barging into open stores, intimidating customers, and b...
Even after he'd been caught stealing United States Postal Service mail in 2019, a 38-year-old man continued his identity-theft crime spree for two years, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office of the Northern District of California. Already in custody since his arrest in February 2021, he plead...
A former Los Angeles tobacco entrepreneur, who conspired to evade millions of dollars in California state and federal taxes, has been sentenced to five years in federal prison and ordered to pay $7 million in restitution and asset forfeiture, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office of the Souther...
Escondido Man Guilty of Art Forgery Like its better-known 10 Most Wanted Fugitives List, the FBI maintains a similar Top 10 Art Crimes List and pursues criminals all over the world. Topping the list are the thousands of art and archeological treasures looted from the Iraq National Museum in Bag...
Kidnapping, Murder of Chinese National July 16, 2018, a wealthy Chinese car dealer was kidnapped in San Gabriel, near Los Angeles. He died after being tied up, repeatedly shocked with a Taser, and severely beaten. The FBI found his body buried in the Mojave Desert in July 2019. In July 2020, th...
Smash-and-Grab Gangs Loot Stores “This is not shoplifting. This is not petty theft,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta told NPR Dec. 20. “This is organized criminal activity where multiple individuals, up to 80 at times, are acting in concert to steal the goods.” In the last two months of 2...
California's unemployment benefits can be a lifeline for many workers who find themselves unemployed, particularly in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. Increases in unemployment claims naturally result in increased unemployment fraud cases. According to the Department of Labor, an estimated three p...
