Law Enforcement | WPN World People News

A former U.S. Foreign Service Officer, Michael T. Sestak, 44, was sentenced on August 14 to 64 months in prison on federal charges in a scheme in which he accepted more than $3 million in bribes to process visas for non-immigrants seeking entry to the United States, announced Acting U.S. Attorney Vincent H. Cohen, Jr. of the District of Columbia and Director Bill A. Miller of the U.S. Department of State’s Diplomatic Security Service.

Earlier August 13, at the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York in Brooklyn, Agron Hasbajrami, an Albanian citizen and resident of Brooklyn, was sentenced to 16 years in prison based on his June 2015 guilty plea to attempting and conspiring to provide material support to terrorists. Pursuant to the terms of his plea agreement, Hasbajrami will be removed from the United States at the conclusion of his sentence. The sentencing proceeding was held before United States District Judge John Gleeson.

A Tampa, Florida, area investment advisor pleaded guilty Thursday to perpetrating a $9 million investment fraud scheme involving Facebook stock.

Two Southwest Missouri health care providers have agreed to pay the United States $5.5 million to settle allegations that they violated the False Claims Act by engaging in improper financial relationships with referring physicians, the Justice Department announced on August 13. The two providers are Mercy Health Springfield Communities, formerly known as St. John’s Health System Inc., which owns and operates a hospital in Springfield, Missouri, and its affiliate, Mercy Clinic Springfield Communities, formerly known as St. John’s Clinic, which operates health care facilities in southwest Missouri.

A U.S. citizen charged in connection with the operation of a series of fraudulent business opportunities based in Costa Rica was sentenced to prison Wednesday in Miami, the Justice Department announced.

A former regional director of SAP International Inc. pleaded guilty Wednesday to conspiracy to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) by participating in a scheme to bribe Panamanian officials to secure the award of government technology contracts for SAP.

PC Specialists Inc., doing business as Technology Integration Group (TIG), has agreed to pay the United States $5.9 million to settle allegations that the company inflated the price of computers sold through another company to the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) for use at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico. TIG, headquartered in San Diego, buys computers and other technology products for resale to other purchasers.

A California woman was sentenced to 130 months in prison for her role in a half-million dollar Costa Rica-based “sweepstakes fraud” scheme that victimized hundreds of U.S. residents.

Adam Dandach, 21, of Orange, California, Monday pleaded guilty to a two-count second superseding information charging him with attempting to provide material support to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and making a false statement in a passport application.

Two tax return preparers with offices located in California, Maryland and New York were sentenced Monday in Los Angeles for facilitating an offshore tax fraud scheme, announced Acting Assistant Attorney General Caroline D. Ciraolo of the Justice Department’s Tax Division.