In the News

Recent developments in the DOJ’s approach to targeting PPP loan fraud offenses suggest that the DOJ is going to increase its use of criminal “conspiracy” laws to charge multiple defendants together for schemes involving PPP loans.

President Trump has nominated five individuals, including four judges, to sit on the U.S. Sentencing Commission.The president’s picks have elicited criticism from advocates of criminal justice reform on both ends of the political spectrum, especially the president’s choice of three judges who have well-established reputations of being “tough on crime” and imposing long sentences.

The Supreme Court of Georgia ruled that the judicial emergency orders suspending and tolling deadlines in criminal cases also suspended the statutory rule under O.C.G.A. 17-7-50 that a defendant denied bond is entitled to release if the state does not indict him within 90 days. The ruling effectively allows indefinite pretrial detention, but the Court left the door open for constitutional challenges.

Federal authorities in Portland and other cities have been targeting and arresting protestors and charging them with federal crimes, often petty offenses occurring on federal property. According to a recent article by ProPublica, protestors in Portland being arrested and charged with federal misdemeanors have been subjected to bond conditions prohibiting them from participating in future protests. One order prohibits the defendant from attending “any other protests, rallies, assemblies or public gathering in the state of Oregon.” Legal experts have criticized these conditions as violating the First Amendment.

Throughout July, the Department of Justice has been announcing an increasing number of prosecutions against individuals accused of “COVID Relief Fraud,” also referred to as CARES Act Fraud. Most cases involved the CARES Act’s Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). The past week saw cases brought across the country from California to Florida and included charges for wire fraud, bank fraud, false statements, money laundering, and healthcare fraud.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office in West Virginia is charging an 18-year-old man with a federal crime based on alleged threats to police officers that he posted on Snapchat, where he posted that he wanted to shoot officers who gave him a citation for a marijuana offense. Prosecutors are charging him with interstate communications containing a threat to injure the person of another under 18 U.S.C. 875(c), which carries up to five years in prison.

On July 8, 2020, federal prosecutors in the Southern District of Florida charged a father and his adult sons with criminal violations relating to distribution of misbranded drugs. According to the criminal complaint, the government is alleging that the men operated a church, the “Genesis II Church of Health and Healing,” through which they sold and marketed “Miracle Mineral Solution,” a bleaching agent that the men allegedly sold as a “miracle cure-all that could treat, prevent, and cure a variety of serious diseases and disorders, including cancer, Alzheimer’s, autism, malaria, Parkinson’s, multiple sclerosis, and HIV/AIDS.” Most recently, the men promoted Miracle Mineral Solution as a cure for COVID-19.

The DOJ announced charges against the president of a California-based medical company, alleging a scheme to solicit investors, manipulate his company’s stock price, and commit healthcare fraud  based on his company submitting false claims to the federal government for COVID-19 testing. The charges include one count of securities fraud and one count of conspiracy to […]

Throughout June, the Department of Justice announced a series of prosecutions initiated against individuals and business accused of “COVID-Relief Fraud,” the DOJ’s term for fraud charges involving the recently enacted Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act. Several of these charges involved the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans issued by the SBA. In an […]

List of BOP inmate deaths in June 2020 due to COVID-19, including age, time in custody, offense of conviction, testing history, and whether inmate had pre-existing, underlying conditions identified by the CDC as high risk.