Law Enforcement | WPN World People News

W.W. Grainger Inc. has agreed to pay the United States $70 million to resolve allegations that it submitted false claims under contracts with the General Services Administration (GSA) and the U.S. Postal Services (USPS), the Department of Justice announced Wednesday. Grainger is a national hardware distributor headquartered in Lake Forest, Illinois.

Trent Martin, a citizen of Australia and a former research analyst at an international financial services firm, was charged today for his alleged involvement in an insider trading scheme with Thomas C. Conradt and David J. Weishaus, two stockbrokers who were arrested for the same offenses on November 29, 2012, announced U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Preet Bharara and Assistant Director in Charge of the New York Field Office of the FBI George Venizelos.

Walter L. Dawkins, D.M.D., 60, of Fairfield, Illinois, was sentenced today in federal court in Benton, Illinois, to one year and one day confinement in the Bureau of Prisons for health care program fraud against Medicaid and illegal distribution of the Schedule III controlled substance hydrocodone, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of Illinois, Stephen R. Wigginton, announced.

Angela Jannell, 50, of Fredericksburg, Virginia, pleaded guilty Friday to misprision of a felon for concealing her husband’s action of taking more than $200,000 in bribes to ensure a Virginia Railway Express (VRE) subcontractor would be retained by VRE.

Preet Bharara, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and George Venizelos, the Assistant Director in Charge of the New York Field Division of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), announced that Chan Ming Fon, a former bank vice president, was arrested Thursday for his participation in a scheme to defraud investors and auditors by misrepresenting the financial condition of Olympus Corporation (Olympus).

In Del Rio, Texas, Eduardo De La Garza, owner of Rio Bravo Construction, surrendered himself to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, in connection with an alleged bribery, kickback, and bid-rigging scheme announced United States Attorney Robert Pitman and FBI Special Agent in Charge Armando Fernandez.

A New Jersey company in the business of receiving the assignment of municipal tax liens pleaded guilty Wednesday for its role in a conspiracy to rig bids for the sale of tax liens auctioned by municipalities in New Jersey, the Department of Justice announced.

Sanofi-Aventis U.S. Inc. and Sanofi-Aventis U.S. LLC, subsidiaries of international drug manufacturer Sanofi (collectively, Sanofi US), have agreed to pay $109 million to resolve allegations that Sanofi US violated the False Claims Act by giving physicians free units of Hyalgan, a knee injection, in violation of the Anti-Kickback Statute, to induce them to purchase and prescribe the product.

Neacacha Joyner, 40, of DeKalb County, a Department of Public Works engineering supervisor with DeKalb County who extorted money from a private construction contractor, was sentenced Wednesday by United States District Judge Richard W. Story to serve two years, three months in federal prison on charges of extortion.

Physician Mary C. Vernon, 60, Lawrence, Kansas, is charged with five counts of tax evasion and one count of making a false statement to a bank in order to obtain a loan, U.S. Attorney Barry Grissom said today. The crimes are alleged to have occurred during 2003 through 2010 in Douglas County, Kansas.