Law Enforcement | WPN World People News

Two former supervisors at the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) pleaded guilty today to bribery charges in connection with a widespread scheme to bribe high-ranking HPD officials in return for lucrative construction contracts.

Preet Bharara, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York; Mary Galligan, the Acting Assistant Director in Charge of the New York Field Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI); Toni Weirauch, the Acting Special Agent in Charge of the New York Field Office of the Internal Revenue Service, Criminal Investigations (IRS-CI)

U.S. Attorney William J. Hochul, Jr. announced today that former Buffalo Police Office Johnnie Fritz, 49, of Buffalo, New York, pleaded guilty to mail fraud before Chief U.S. District Judge William M. Skretny. The charge carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, a fine of $250,000, or both.

This Monday, Sol Luis Fontanes-Olivo, former mayor of the municipality of Barceloneta, Puerto Rico, was sentenced to 120 months (10 years) in prison, a $150,000 fine, forfeiture of $60,000, and three years of supervised release, by United States District Court Judge José A. Fusté, announced Rosa Emilia Rodríguez-Vélez, United States Attorney for the District of Puerto Rico.

Mark Gary, 39, of Duluth,pleaded guilty on this monday in federal district court to a charge of bribing a Gwinnett County Commissioner in 2009 to secure approval of a proposed waste transfer station in which he held a personal stake.

John J. McCauley, Jr., 54, of Cranston, the owner and co-operator of McCauley and L’Europa Public Adjusters LLC and PIA Restoration LLC, pleaded guilty in federal court in Providence on last friday to conspiracy to defraud the United States and filing false tax returns.

Jon Horvath, 42, of San Francisco, a former research analyst at a hedge fund in New York, on last friday pleaded guilty in New York City federal court to charges arising from his involvement in a $61.8 million insider trading scheme, announced Preet Bharara, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. The alleged scheme involved multiple analysts and portfolio managers at different hedge funds and investment firms who allegedly exchanged material, non-public information (inside information) about publicly traded technology companies, including Dell Inc. and NVIDIA Corp.

Meseret Terefe, 36, of Silver Spring, Maryland, pled guilty today to stealing at least $400,000 of visitor parking fees belonging to the Smithsonian Institution’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia.

U.S. Attorney William J. Hochul, Jr. announced today that Richard E. Riedman, 39, of Webster, New York; Anthony Toscano, 47, of Rochester, New York; Anthony J. Russell, 39, of Rochester, New York; and Timothy M. Stone, 32, of Chili, New York, were convicted after a jury trial of conspiracy to steal an interstate shipment and theft of an interstate shipment.

A supervisory customs and border protection officer pleaded guilty on Sep. 28, 2012 in the Southern District of Florida to impersonating a U.S. Customs attaché and making false statements related to his assignment with the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Preclearance Office in Dublin, announced Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division and U.S. Attorney Wifredo A. Ferrer for the Southern District of Florida.