Justice Department

WASHINGTON, Friday, July 18, 2008 -- Jesus Perez-Laguna, a citizen of Mexico, was sentenced today in federal court in Columbia, S.C., on charges stemming from a sex trafficking ring involving at least one teenage girl. Perez-Laguna was sentenced to over 14 years imprisonment and ordered to pay $52,500 in restitution to his victims. After his release from prison, Perez-Laguna will be on federal supervised release for the rest of his life.

As a condition of supervised release, U.S. District Judge Joseph F. Anderson ordered that Perez-Laguna be surrendered to immigration officials for deportation proceedings and further ordered that Perez-Laguna not return to the United States while on supervised release.    » read more »

WASHINGTON, Friday, July 18, 2008 — The Department of Justice announced today that it has filed a complaint in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan against the City of Ecorse, Mich., alleging that the city discriminated against two women formerly employed in the city clerk’s office by subjecting them to sexual harassment by their supervisor that created a hostile work environment.    » read more »

Boston, Mass., June 23, 2008 -- The pharmaceutical company Pfizer Inc. has agreed to pay a $975,000 civil penalty to resolve alleged violations of the Clean Air Act at its former manufacturing plant in Groton, Conn., the Justice Department and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced today. Today’s settlement is the first of its type in federal court under regulations that are designed to control the emissions of hazardous air pollutants from pharmaceutical manufacturing operations.    » read more »

May 20, 2008 -- SAN DIEGO -- California Attorney General Edmund G. Brown Jr. today released the results of an investigation into allegations of “a corrupt course of action” that San Diego City Attorney Mike Aguirre leveled against San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders. The department concludes that the record does not support the allegations made by the city attorney against the mayor.

Sunroad Centrum building, San Diego: Photo by Jamie Lantzy (CC)    » read more »

May 20, 2008 -- WASHINGTON – Senator Carl Levin, D-Mich., today released the following statement regarding the report released by the Department of Justice Inspector General entitled “A review of the FBI’s involvement in and Observations of Detainee Interrogations in Guantanamo Bay, Afghanistan, and Iraq.”

Bush protesters, March 2007: Photo by Andrew Ciscel (CC)

“Some have suggested that the abuse of detainees in U.S. custody was simply the result of a few bad apples acting on their own. The report released today by the Department of Justice Inspector General is proof that that is simply not true.    » read more »

April 17, 2008 -- (Washington, DC)- Today, House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI) and Committee Members Linda Sánchez (D-CA), Artur Davis (D-AL), and Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) announced three critical actions in the Committee's investigation into allegations of selective or poltiically-motivated prosecution in the Justice Department.

Karl Rove protesters: Photo by Ted Swedenburg (CC)    » read more »

Montana man’s history of committing sexual assaults on minors spans more than 25 years

WASHINGTON, FRIDAY, MARCH 28, 2008 – A child sex offender with multiple prior convictions for offenses against children has been sentenced to life in prison on both counts for which he was convicted, to run concurrently, Assistant Attorney General Alice S. Fisher of the Criminal Division and Timothy J. Fuhrman, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI’s Salt Lake City Division, announced today.    » read more »