Annual Report 2010
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ANNUAL REPORT 2010 DISTRICT OF MINNESOTA UNITED STATES ATTORNEY’S OFFICE TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction . 2 District of Minnesota . 3 Terrorism and National Security Team . 4 Domestic Terrorism . 5 Criminal Division and Criminal Division Statistical Data . 6 Fraud and Public Corruption Section . 8 Corporate Fraud . 8 Investment Fraud . 10 Health Care Fraud . 13 Mortgage Fraud . 14 Tax Fraud . 15 Cyber Crime . 16 Public Corruption . 17 Major Crimes and Priority Prosecutions Section . 18 Indian County . 18 Project Safe Childhood . 20 Human Trafficking . 22 Identity Theft . 23 Bank Robberies . 24 Customs and Immigration . 25 Other Major Crimes . 26 OCDETF and Violent Crime Section . 28 Drug Cartels . 28 Gangs and Drug Trafficking . 29 Other Drug Trafficking . 30 Cocaine . 30 Methamphetamine . 31 Marijuana . 32 Other Drugs . 33 Project Exile Minneapolis . 34 Project Safe Neighborhoods . 35 Other Violent Crimes . 36 Civil Division and Civil Division Statistical Data . 37 Asset Forfeiture and Financial Litigation . 39 Affirmative Civil Enforcement . 40 Civil Rights Enforcement . 41 Civil Health Care Fraud . 42 Defensive Litigation . 43 Civil Division Clinics . 44 Appellate Division . 45 Community Relations Division . 47 Community Outreach . 47 Law Enforcement Training and Assistance . 48 Victim-Witness Assistance . 48 Media Relations and Communications . 48 Community Relations Highlights . 49 Administrative Division . 51 Contact Information . Back Page INTRODUCTION he position of United States Attorney was created by the federal Judiciary Act T of 1789, which provided for the appointment in each judicial district of a “[p]erson learned in law to act as attorney for the United States...whose duty it shall be to prosecute in each district all delinquents for crimes and offenses cognizable under the authority of the United States, and all civil actions in which the United States shall be concerned….” That same act also established the position of Attorney General of the United States, specified the structure of the Supreme Court of the United States, and created lower courts, including the district court system, which make up the United States federal judiciary. The President appoints the U.S. Attorney for each of the country’s 94 federal judicial districts, although those appointments must be confirmed by the United U.S. Attorney B. Todd Jones States Senate. A U.S. Attorney’s term in office is four years but may be renewed. Early on, U.S. Attorneys maintained private law practices while working on behalf of the federal government. If they needed staff assistance, they personally paid the wages. Now, however, U.S. Attorneys and the lawyers hired to help them, called Assistant U.S. Attorneys, are prohibited from engaging in private law practices while serving the government. In addition, they are provided salaries established by law and paid from the U.S. Treasury. Because they represent the federal government, they may not offer legal advice to individuals. U.S. Attorneys serve under the direction of the Attorney General of the United States. They and their staff work within the U.S. Department of Justice, often called the largest law firm in the world. The Justice Department, part of the federal government’s Executive Branch, is devoted to enforcing or otherwise carrying out the laws of the land. The Department of Justice accomplishes that, primarily, by representing the United States in court. The current U.S. Attorney for the District of Minnesota is B. Todd Jones, who was appointed by President Barack Obama and confirmed by the U.S. Senate on August 7, 2009. Attorney General Eric Holder also has appointed Jones to chair the Attorney General Advisory Committee. That body consists of 18 U.S. Attorneys from around the country and is responsible for advising the Attorney General on a broad array of Department of Justice policy issues. This is the second time Jones has served as the U.S. Attorney for the District of Minnesota. In 1998, President Clinton appointed him to the position, and he served in that capacity until January of 2001. In addition to working in private practice, Jones previously served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the District. “The United States Attorney is the representative not of an ordinary party to a controversy, but of a sovereignty whose obligation to govern impar- tially is as compelling as its obligation to govern at all; and whose interest, therefore, in a criminal prosecution is not that it shall win a case, but that justice be done. As such he is in a peculiar and very definite sense the servant of the law, John R. Marti, First Assistant U.S. Attorney the twofold aim of which is that guilt shall not escape or innocence suffer. He may prosecute with earnestness and vigor—indeed he should do so. But, while he may strike hard blows, he is not at liberty to strike foul ones. It is as much his duty to refrain from improper methods calculated to produce a wrongful conviction as it is to use every legitimate means to bring about a just one.” Mr. Justice Sutherland Berger v. United States, 295 U.S. 88 (1935) Andrew S. Dunne, Senior Litigation Counsel Page 2 DISTRICT OF MINNESOTA innesota was established as a territory and federal judicial district by the Congress of the United States on M March 17, 1849. Two days later, Henry L. Moss was appointed its first United States Attorney by President Zachary Taylor and served for the first time in the position until 1853. Like several of his successors, Moss was re-appointed as U.S. Attorney in 1863 and served until 1868. Since that time, the District’s 31 U.S. Attorneys have worked hard to uphold the laws of this nation and protect the rights and safety of the citizens of Minnesota. One of the earliest U.S. Attorneys in Minnesota also was one of its most well known. Cushman K. Davis was a member of the Minnesota legislature before being commissioned as U.S. Attorney in 1868. Then, in 1873, he became Governor. After that, he was elected to the U.S. Senate, where he served until his death in 1900. Other U.S. Attorneys and Assistant U.S. Attorneys have become State District Court judges, State Appellate Court and State Supreme Court judges, U.S. District Court judges, and federal magistrates. Presently, approximately 125 people, including more than 50 Assistant U.S. Attorneys, work in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the District of Minnesota. The Office headquarters is in the federal courthouse in Minneapolis, and a branch office is maintained in St. Paul. Functionally, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the District of Minnesota is divided into five divisions: a criminal division, a civil division, an appellate division, a community relations division, and an administrative division. The mission of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Minnesota is to ensure that we provide the United States of America with high quality and professional legal representation, maintaining the highest ethical standards and, at all times, pursuing justice. The Office is wholly committed to the promotion of the public good and the safety of our community. Within this broader mission, we recognize that our primary responsibilities include— The prosecution of criminal offenses against the United States; The prosecution or defense for the government of civil actions, suits, or proceedings in which the United States is concerned; and Assisting communities within the District of Minnesota in appropriate community-building efforts designed to enhance public safety. St. Paul Branch Office Opens For years, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Minnesota operated solely out of its Minneapolis office. That all changed in 2010, however, when U.S. Attorney B. Todd Jones announced the opening of a fully staffed branch office in the federal courthouse in St. Paul. The St. Paul Office is led by Assistant U.S. Attorney Paul A. Murphy, a veteran federal prosecutor who recently served as the U.S. Attorney for the Virgin Islands before returning home to Minnesota, where he worked as an Assistant U.S. Attorney for more than two decades. The St. Paul Office Staff The St. Paul Office houses the Appellate Division of the U.S. Attorney’s Office as well as several members of the Criminal Division. It also provides office space for Minneapolis-based criminal prosecutors and civil litigators who are preparing for oral arguments before the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, which routinely is seated in St. Paul. Moreover, the Office regularly serves as a temporary workplace for the Minneapolis-based lawyers who find themselves in trial before federal judges who office in the St. Paul federal courthouse. Page 3 TERRORISM AND NATIONAL SECURITY TEAM he lead priority of the U.S. Attorney’s Office remains T the vigorous prosecution of persons and entities engaged in or supporting terrorism. To that end, the Office’s Terrorism and National Security Team, led by First Assistant U.S. Attorney John R. Marti and comprised of anti-terrorism specialists and experienced Assistant U.S. Attorneys from all sections of the Office’s Criminal Division, works to investigate and prosecute matters of national security. During the past year, the Terrorism and National Security Team focused on al-Shabaab, a designated foreign terrorist organization, and its efforts to recruit young Minnesotans of Somali descent to return to the Horn of Africa to engage in terrorist activity against the United States and its allies. The Team also worked to stop those interested in obtaining advanced technologies that, if proliferated, would threaten national security interests. Some of the work of the Terrorism and National Security Team during Fiscal Year 2010 is highlighted below. TERRORISM AND NATIONAL SECURITY Attorney General Eric Holder Announces Charges for Providing Material Support to Foreign Terrorist Group Al-Shabaab On August 5, 2010, the Attorney General for the United States announced four separate indictments, charging 14 individuals with terrorism offenses for providing money, personnel, and services to the foreign terrorist group Attorney General Holder Announces Terrorism Indictments al-Shabaab.