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An employee of the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (HHS-ASPR) pleaded guilty on Friday in Washington, D.C., to defrauding the United States by submitting fraudulent employment offers in order to claim retention bonuses totaling $138,875, announced Acting Assistant Attorney General Mythili Raman of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division .

Lawyers from the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) urged a federal judge to reject California’s attempt to dismiss a class action lawsuit challenging prolonged solitary confinement in California prisons. The case was filed on behalf of prisoners in the Security Housing Unit (SHU) at the notorious Pelican Bay State Prison who have spent between 10 and 28 years in solitary confinement and who staged two widely publicized hunger strikes in 2011. It alleges that prolonged solitary confinement violates Eighth Amendment prohibitions against cruel and unusual punishment, and that the absence of meaningful review of SHU placement violates the prisoners’ right to due process. CCR lawyers argued today that nominal, temporary reforms by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR), which the defendants cited as grounds for dismissing the case, have had little to no effect on the conditions challenged in the lawsuit and, thus, the case must proceed.

John Hall, 27, an Aryan Brotherhood member and inmate at the Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) in Seagoville, Texas, was sentenced today by U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor after pleading guilty to violating the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, stemming from his assault of a fellow inmate, whom he believed to be gay, the Department of Justice announced. Hall assaulted his fellow inmate with a dangerous weapon, causing bodily injury to the victim on December 20, 2011. Hall was sentenced to serve 71 months in prison, to be served consecutively with the sentence he is currently serving.

A former web producer for a Tribune Company-owned television station in Sacramento, California, was charged today in an indictment for allegedly conspiring with members of the hacker group “Anonymous” to hack into and alter a Tribune Company website, the Justice Department announced.

A federal court has permanently barred Crystal Ireland, of Detroit, who does business as Master Mind Preparation, from preparing federal tax returns that claim the earned income tax credit, the Justice Department announced Thursday.

The former mayor of Hamilton Township, New Jersey, was sentenced Wednesday to 38 months in prison in connection with $12,400 in bribes he solicited and accepted in exchange for his official influence in helping a health insurance broker maintain her contract with the township’s school district, U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman said.

A Texas doctor was sentenced on this Thursday to serve 63 months in prison for conspiring to commit health care fraud by falsifying plans of care for Medicare beneficiaries, including patients whom he did not treat, as part of a $17.3 million Medicare fraud scheme.

U.S. Attorney Robert E. O’Neill announces that the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit Wednesday affirmed the convictions of former Jacksonville Port Authority (JAXPort) Chairman Tony Devaughan Nelson on 36 corruption-related charges, including bribery, money laundering, honest services mail fraud, and making a false statement to the FBI.

Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan has pardoned a former state governor who was convicted of stealing millions of dollars while in office. The move has sparked outrage among critics who say the president has abandoned the fight against corruption.

Cambodia's United Nations-backed war crimes tribunal says Ieng Sary, a former top official in the brutal Khmer Rouge movement, has died while on trial for genocide and war crimes.