Free Republic

Keith Raniere, the founder and leader of Nxivm, was sentenced today to 120 years in prison by United States District Judge Nicholas G. Garaufis in federal court in Brooklyn. Raniere was convicted by a federal jury in June 2019 of racketeering, racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking, attempted sex trafficking, sex trafficking conspiracy, forced labor conspiracy and wire fraud conspiracy. The Court also imposed a fine of $1,750,000. At the sentencing hearing, the Court heard victim impact statements from 15 individuals, including “Camila,” the victim who was sexually exploited by Raniere when she was 15 years old. A hearing on victim restitution...

South Court AuditoriumEisenhower Executive Office Building5:16 P.M. ESTTHE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, thank you all very much. Paul, thank you for those kind words and for your tireless work at Health and Human Services. To Secretary Azar — really, our host for the day — we thank you for your extraordinary leadership and your — I think he deserves a round of applause. Secretary Alex Azar. (Applause.) We’ve been shoulder to shoulder for 10 months in all of this, and the President and I couldn’t be more grateful for the entire team at HHS and all of the people that you’ve...

CHICAGO — A suburban Chicago man was arrested on a federal firearm charge after law enforcement this week seized machine guns and more than 100 “switch” devices from his home. Each device is capable of converting a semi-automatic pistol into a machine gun.LEONARD D. JOHNSON, also known as “Scrap,” 32, of Robbins, is charged with one count of illegal possession of a machine gun. Johnson was arrested Monday after agents from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives executed a search warrant at his home. The agents seized five firearms, including three machine guns, and approximately 117 “switch”...

December 9, 2020Through its global work, the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Overseas Prosecutorial Development, Assistance and Training (OPDAT) provides expert assistance and case-based mentoring to foreign counterparts to address corruption issues that not only impact their countries but also foster transnational criminal activities. Corruption indeed is a global issue and OPDAT is proud to join in the recognition of International Anti-Corruption Day.OPDAT’s Senior Counsel on Global Anticorruption provides specialized technical advice, training, and consultation to foreign prosecutors, judges, and investigators around the world. OPDAT’s anticorruption program assists counterparts from other jurisdictions in analyzing, investigating, and prosecuting corruption pursuant...

DISH to pay historic civil penalty in a telemarketing enforcement actionThe Department of Justice today announced a settlement in which DISH Network LLC (DISH) will pay $126 million in civil penalties to the United States for placing millions of telemarketing calls in violation of the Federal Trade Commission's Telemarketing Sales Rule (TSR). This settlement represents the largest civil penalty ever paid to resolve telemarketing violations under the FTC Act, and exceeds the total penalties paid to the government by all prior violators of the TSR. DISH will also pay a combined $84 million to four states for violations of the...

WASHINGTON – Brian J. Booth, a 38-year-old Virginia resident, was arrested today and charged via criminal complaint with mail fraud for a scheme to use information stolen from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in an attempt to extort foreign officials and obtain payment for the information. According to Court records, Booth, an FAA employee, had access to information identifying persons who were previously authorized to exercise piloting or aircraft maintenance privileges in the United States, but who had their piloting or aircraft maintenance privileges revoked. Booth sent the names and addresses of certain of these individuals to the embassies...

This is the Eleventh Settlement under the Civil Rights Division’s 2017 Protecting U.S. Workers InitiativeThe Justice Department today announced that it signed a settlement agreement with Ikon Systems, LLC (Ikon), an IT staffing and recruiting company based in Texas.This is the eleventh settlement by the Civil Rights Division under its 2017 Protecting U.S. Workers Initiative, which is aimed at targeting, investigating, and taking enforcement actions against companies that discriminate against U.S. workers in favor of temporary visa workers. Today’s settlement resolves claims that Ikon routinely discriminated against U.S. workers by posting job advertisements specifying a preference for applicants with temporary...

CONTACT: Barbara Burns PHONE: (716) 843-5817 FAX #: (716) 551-3051BUFFALO, N.Y. - U.S. Attorney James P. Kennedy, Jr. announced today that Jasmin Osteen, 23, of Jamestown, NY, was arrested and charged by criminal complaint with two counts of sex trafficking of a minor. The charge carries a mandatory minimum penalty of 10 years in prison, and a maximum of life in prison.“As alleged in the criminal complaint, this woman exploited two vulnerable young girls for her own financial benefit,” stated U.S. Attorney Kennedy. “The depravity of the defendant’s conduct and the harm she caused to these two minors are the...

Audrey Strauss, the Acting United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Ralph Sozio, the United States Marshal for the Southern District of New York, and Dermot Shea, the Commissioner of the New York City Police Department (“NYPD”), announced today the filing of a Complaint in Manhattan federal court charging GRANT GRANDISON with making false statements to federal agents and harboring or concealing a person from arrest. As alleged, GRANDISON allowed Andre K. Sterling, a fugitive wanted for the November 20, 2020, shooting of a state trooper in Massachusetts, to reside in his Bronx apartment. GRANDISON further allegedly...

Jamar Long Sentenced to More than Seventeen Years and Reddell Smith Sentenced to More than Seven Years in Prison for RICO ConvictionsSYRACUSE, NEW YORK – Jamar Long, 25, and Reddell Smith, 35, both of Syracuse, were sentenced today to serve 210 months (Long), and 78 months (Smith), respectively, in federal prison for violating the Racketeering Influenced Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), announced Acting United States Attorney Antoinette T. Bacon, Thomas F. Relford, Special Agent in Charge of the Albany Field Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and Syracuse Police Chief Kenton Buckner. Senior United State District Judge Frederick J....

Scheme Led to More Than 100 Turkish Children Obtaining Birthright U.S. Citizenship and a $2.1 Million Loss to MedicaidEarlier today, at the federal courthouse in Central Islip, an indictment was unsealed charging Ibrahim Aksakal, Indicted Co-conspirator #1, Enes Burak Cakiroglu and Sarah Kaplan with conspiring to commit visa fraud, health care fraud, wire fraud and money laundering, and Fiordalisa Marte and Edgar Rodriguez with conspiring to commit health care fraud, wire fraud and money laundering, for their participation in a so-called “birth tourism” scheme in Suffolk County between approximately 2017 and 2020. The scheme facilitated pregnant Turkish women fraudulently entering...

United States Attorney Joe Kelly announced that Devin L. Ashford, 33, of Lincoln, Nebraska, was sentenced today after being found guilty by a jury of Sex Trafficking of a Minor; Sex Trafficking by Force, Fraud, or Coercion; Production of Child Pornography; and Interstate Transportation for Prostitution. Chief United States District Judge John M. Gerrard sentenced Ashford to 564 months (47 years) in federal prison. There is no parole in the federal system. After his release from prison, Ashford will begin a 10-year term of supervised release.When pronouncing sentence, Chief Judge Gerrard noted that he was particularly concerned with deterrence in...

WILMINGTON, Del. – David C. Weiss, United States Attorney for the District of Delaware, announced today that Rodney Phipps, 30, of Georgetown, was sentenced today to 37 months in prison by the Honorable Richard G. Andrews, United States District Judge for the District of Delaware.Phipps pled guilty in January 2020 to five counts of making interstate threats and one count of making a false threat involving explosives in relation to a string of “swatting” phone calls he made to police departments and emergency dispatch centers across the country. “Swatting” involves making hoax emergency calls in order to elicit an armed...

Special Attorneys Michael Wheat (619) 546-8437, Joseph Orabona (619) 546-7951, Janaki Chopra (619) 546-8817, and Colin McDonald (619) 546-9144NEWS RELEASE SUMMARY – December 2, 2020HONOLULU, Hawaii – Former Honolulu Police Chief Louis Kealoha and his wife, former Honolulu prosecutor Katherine Kealoha, were sentenced in federal court this week to 84 months and 156 months in prison, respectively, for a range of criminal conduct, including framing their relative with a crime to conceal their own fraud. Additionally, the Kealohas’ co-conspirators, former Honolulu police officers Derek Wayne Hahn and Minh-Hung “Bobby” Nguyen, received 42 months and 54 months, respectively, for their involvement...

Nearly 250 years ago, heroes of our Revolution signed the Declaration of Independence, offering a bold enumeration of inalienable rights endowed to us by our Creator. In time, with independence secured from a tyrannical monarchy, our Nation etched these principles of liberty and equality into the law of our fledgling Nation when we ratified our Constitution. The revolutionary idea they embodied — that certain individual rights are beyond the reach of government — has resonated around the world. Today, and this week, we celebrate our sacred rights and the example they have set for the rest of history.James Madison, who...

Gordon Chang, an American of Chinese ancestry who spent decades in China and has extensively written about the threat of China, warned that China meddled in the 2020 presidential election and engaged in “an act of war” against the United States by enflaming the antifa/Black Lives Matter riots in American cities over the summer. “China certainly wanted to influence the outcome of the election,” Chang said in an interview with American Thought Leaders, a show run by The Epoch Times. “So for instance, during the Democratic Party nomination process, they supported Joe Biden over Bernie Sanders, and during the general...

A Maryland lawyer was charged in an 11-count indictment for his alleged role in a scheme to fraudulently obtain control of more than $12.5 million that was held by financial institutions on behalf of the Somali government, to improperly take part of those funds for fees and expenses, and to launder a portion of those funds to accounts for the benefit of his co-conspirators.Acting Assistant Attorney General Brian C. Rabbitt of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney Robert K. Hur of the District of Maryland, Special Agent in Charge Jennifer C. Boone of the FBI’s Baltimore Field Office, and...

Renowned scientist tells Laura Ingraham the COVID-19 vaccine is 'downright dangerous' and will send you 'to your doom'On Wednesday, The Ingraham Angle broadcast a mind-boggling live interview with a world-renowned microbiologist who said the "looming" COVID-19 vaccine is "downright dangerous" and will send you "to your doom." The expert, Sucharit Bhakdi, M.D., speaking from his home in Germany, also said this:Laura Ingraham, Fox News channel host: On the social distancing and the mask, just to focus on that for a moment, which of those two in your research and your work has been the most displaced? Dr. Sucharit Bhakdi: Both....

Robby Dinero, the owner of Athletes Unleashed gym located in Orchard Park, New York, tore up a $15,000 fine from the Erie County Health Department during a live Fox News interview. Dinero got hit with the extraordinarily hefty fine following a confrontation in which roughly 50 business owners attending a meeting inside the gym refused to allow a pair of sheriffs and a health inspector entry to the building without a warrant. “They picked a fight with a Marine and a whole bunch of patriots,” the gym owner said in a separate interview with WBEN, before pointing out that “The...

Sarah Fuller became the first woman to ever play in a Power Five college football game on Saturday when she kicked off for Vanderbilt in their showdown against Missouri. Because the Tigers came into the game 3-3 and Vandy 0-7, the historic element of the kickoff was pretty much the only thing folks tuned in for. Almost immediately, the reactions began to pour in on social media. They were largely what you’d expect.