2023

A federal grand jury in Fort Pierce, Florida, returned an indictment charging a Florida man with 10 counts of sex trafficking.

In the year since the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, the Justice Department has worked with commitment and urgency to defend the reproductive freedoms that are protected by federal law. In response to the Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the department established the Reproductive Rights Task Force, which formalized the department’s ongoing work to protect reproductive freedoms under federal law.

A Nigerian national, who was previously extradited to the United States from the United Kingdom, was sentenced to 82 months in prison on June 21, 2023 for his role in a transnational inheritance fraud scheme.

From June 20 to 23, Assistant Attorney General (AAG) Kenneth A. Polite, Jr. of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division traveled to Bogotá, Colombia, to meet with Colombian counterparts, law enforcement partners, and Criminal Division personnel assigned to U.S. Embassy Bogotá to discuss law enforcement efforts between the two countries and advance the bilateral relationship with Colombia.

The Justice Department today announced the arrest of two individuals and the unsealing of three indictments in the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York charging China-based companies and their employees with crimes related to fentanyl production, distribution, and sales resulting from precursor chemicals. These indictments represent the first prosecutions to charge China-based chemical manufacturing companies and nationals of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) for trafficking fentanyl precursor chemicals into the United States Specifically, the indictments allege the defendants knowingly manufactured, marketed, sold, and supplied precursor chemicals for fentanyl production in the United States in violation of federal law.

The Justice Department today filed a proposed stipulated order that will require the Municipality of San Juan, Puerto Rico, to take critical steps towards making its public sidewalk system accessible to individuals with disabilities. The proposed order was filed jointly with the municipality and private plaintiffs and pauses the department’s lawsuit against the municipality while requiring it to conduct a comprehensive assessment of sidewalk accessibility and to begin fixing accessibility barriers. The lawsuit alleges that San Juan has violated the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act (Section 504) by failing to provide people with disabilities equal access to the municipality’s sidewalks, curb ramps, crosswalks and other pedestrian facilities.

The Department of Justice, together with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), today announced that the government has obtained substantial injunctive relief protecting consumer privacy against Easy Healthcare Corporation (Easy Healthcare), an Illinois corporation located in Burr Ridge, Illinois, pursuant to a stipulated order entered by a federal court today. The department also will collect $100,000 in civil penalties from the defendants, an amount based upon the defendant’s ability to pay.

A federal jury in the Eastern District of Kentucky convicted a dentist yesterday for unlawfully prescribing opioids, including unlawfully prescribing morphine that caused his patient’s death.

A federal jury in Columbus convicted an Ohio doctor yesterday for illegally prescribing buprenorphine and other controlled substances in violation of the Controlled Substances Act.

A federal jury in Chicago convicted an Illinois pharmacist on Friday for stealing and selling COVID-19 vaccination cards.