Law Enforcement | WPN World People News

Earlier in federal court, a 64-year-old woman from the southeastern Minnesota community of Wykoff pleaded guilty to embezzling approximately $35,520 from the Security State Bank where she was employed as the head teller. Cheryl Lynn Holzer pleaded guilty to one count of bank embezzlement.

Chief U.S. District Judge Deborah K. Chasanow sentenced Lauren Jeannette Diggs, age 51, of Rockville, to 30 months in prison, followed by three years of supervised release, for a bribery conspiracy and making false statements to the grand jury in connection with a scheme to accept bribes from individuals charged or convicted of federal crimes to falsify urine tests.

The former president and CEO and the former vice president of corporate finance of China North East Petroleum Holdings Limited (CNEP), an oil and gas company whose stock is traded in the United States, have been charged with defrauding investors in connection with public offerings of stock.

Diane M. Hathaway, a former Michigan Supreme Court Justice, was sentenced to one year and one day in federal prison after having pleaded guilty in January to committing bank fraud in connection with a property in Grosse Pointe Park, Michigan, United States Attorney Barbara L. McQuade announced. McQuade was joined in the announcement by Special Agent in Charge Robert D. Foley, III of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. pleaded guilty in cases filed by federal prosecutors in Los Angeles and San Francisco to six counts of violating the Clean Water Act by illegally handling and disposing of hazardous materials at its retail stores across the United States.

According to the allegations in the indictment, the civil forfeiture complaint, and other documents filed in federal court

James T. Hayes Jr., Special Agent-in-Charge of the New York Field Office of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), announced the unsealing of an indictment charging Liberty Reserve, a company that operated one of the world’s most widely used digital currency services, and seven of its principals and employees with money laundering and operating an unlicensed money transmitting business. Liberty Reserve is alleged to have had more than one million users worldwide, including more than 200,000 users in the U.S., who conducted approximately 55 million transactions – virtually all of which were illegal – and laundered more than $6 billion in suspected proceeds of crimes including credit card fraud, identity theft, investment fraud, computer hacking, child pornography and narcotics trafficking.

The former president and CEO, and the former vice president of corporate finance of China North East Petroleum Holdings Limited (CNEP), an oil and gas company whose stock is traded in the United States, have been charged with defrauding investors in connection with public offerings of stock.

United States Attorney Brendan V. Johnson announced that Dennis Mallow, age 47, of Black Hawk, South Dakota, appeared before U.S. Magistrate Judge Veronica L. Duffy, and pled guilty to theft of government property. The maximum penalty upon conviction is 10 years of imprisonment and a $250,000 fine.

Following a multi-week trial, three top executives and a favored borrower have been convicted by a federal jury in Norfolk, Virginia. Accused of masking non-performing assets at the Bank of the Commonwealth for their own personal benefit and to the detriment of the bank, those in this long-running scheme contributed to the failure of the bank in 2011, costing the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) an estimated $268 million.