Source: United States Department of Justice Criminal Division
Tacoma – The 64-year-old owner of a small Tacoma market was arraigned today in U.S. District Court in Tacoma for multiple counts of wire fraud and SNAP benefit fraud, announced First Assistant U.S. Attorney Charles Neil Floyd.
Source: United States Department of Justice Criminal Division
PHOENIX, Ariz. – A Pinal County man was sentenced last week in federal court for distribution of child pornography from 2016 to 2017. James Stacey Porter, 59, was sentenced April 13, 2026, by U.S. District Judge John J. Tuchi to 129 months in prison. Porter previously pleaded guilty to Distribution of Child Pornography on Oct. 10, 2025.
Source: United States Department of Justice Criminal Division
The Justice Department filed a civil forfeiture complaint today in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California seeking the forfeiture of a mansion located in Beverly Hills, California, alleged to have been purchased and renovated with approximately $30 million in proceeds of a scheme to defraud the U.S. Department of Defense’s Defense Logistics Agency (DLA), pay bribes to an official of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, and violate U.S. money laundering laws.
As alleged in the complaint, from 2016 through 2020, a Virginia-based defense contractor and others engaged in a corrupt scheme to obtain more than $700 million from DLA for fuel deliveries to the U.S. military during Operation Inherent Resolve, the U.S. campaign against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. The Erbil International Airport (EIA) located in Kurdistan, where Kurdish Peshmerga forces provided internal security and controlled entry to the facility, served as a critical delivery point for fuel used by the U.S. military in Iraq and Syria during the campaign.
The complaint alleges that officers of the contractor agreed to pay General Mansour Barzani, a senior Peshmerga official, a bribe of $0.25 per liter for exclusive access to deliver jet fuel in Kurdistan for the U.S. military and coalition forces and received hundreds of millions of dollars under DLA contracts. During the same period, the contractor’s competitors were blocked from accessing EIA for jet fuel deliveries on behalf of DLA, and DLA issued one-time-buy contracts to the contractor often at noncompetitive and greatly inflated prices.
According to the civil forfeiture complaint, funds that the contractor received from DLA as a result of the scheme were transferred to NYJD Trust No.1, a trust established in Virginia for the private benefit of Barzani. In 2018, approximately $30 million of those funds were transferred from Barzani’s trust to purchase the Beverly Hills mansion as well as the renovation and improvement of the property from 2019 to 2022.
This case was investigated by the FBI Washington Field Office, the Defense Criminal Investigative Service, and IRS Criminal Investigation.
Deputy Chief Michael B. Redmann and Senior Trial Attorney Steven Parker of the Criminal Division’s Money Laundering, Narcotics and Forfeiture Section (MNF) are handling the case. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California and the Justice Department’s Office of International Affairs also provided significant support.
The Money Laundering, Narcotics and Forfeiture Section’s mission is to take the profit out of crime, eliminate drug cartels, and protect the U.S. financial system. MNF pursues criminal prosecutions and criminal and civil asset recovery actions involving: financial facilitators who launder profits for criminals; financial institutions and their officers and employees whose actions threaten the U.S. financial system and financial institutions; international money launderers who support transnational organized crime; and the top command and control of international drug trafficking organizations.
MNF’s International Unit investigates and prosecutes cross-border money laundering schemes involving transnational criminal organizations, cartels, foreign official corruption and related money laundering affecting the U.S. financial system and prosecutes criminal cases and civil forfeiture matters to recover the proceeds of those crimes.
A civil complaint is merely an allegation. The government has the burden of establishing the assets are subject to forfeiture by a preponderance of the evidence.
Source: United States Department of Justice Criminal Division
U.S. Attorney Michael DiGiacomo announced today that Kavon A. Wilson, 32, of Elmira, NY, who was convicted of possession with intent to distribute five grams or more of methamphetamine, and possession of firearms in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime, was sentenced to serve 151 months in prison by Chief U.S. District Judge Elizabeth A. Wolford. Wilson was also ordered to forfeit two firearms and 14 rounds of ammunition.
Source: United States Department of Justice Criminal Division
U.S. Attorney Michael DiGiacomo announced today that David Martinez, 58, of Cheektowaga, NY, pleaded guilty before U.S. Magistrate Judge Michael J. Roemer to embezzlement by union officials, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison, and a fine of $250,000.
Source: United States Department of Justice Criminal Division
Tampa, Florida – Brandon Bernard Williams (41, Palmetto) has been charged by federal indictment for possession of ammunition by a convicted felon. If convicted, Williams faces a maximum penalty of 15 years in federal prison. U.S. Attorney Gregory W. Kehoe made the announcement.
Source: United States Department of Justice Criminal Division
Baltimore, Maryland – A Baltimore man pled guilty in federal court, today, to bank-fraud charges in connection with a real-estate scheme. Jacob Rappaport, 41, is charged with conspiracy to commit bank fraud. Rappaport, an attorney, represented Alexander Schultz, 31, formerly of Pikesville, Maryland and Schultz’s company, Limitless Management — a company that bought, sold, and managed real estate in Maryland — on various real estate transactions.
Source: United States Army
PICATINNY ARSENAL, N.J. – In a significant leap forward for battlefield technology, U.S. Army infantry drone operators have successfully tested a new warhead designed to be delivered by an unmanned aerial system.
The live-fire demonstration of the Bunker Rupture and Kinetic Explosive Round, called BRAKER, which took place at a Redstone Arsenal in Alabama on March 26, comes only weeks after the initial design and rapid prototyping of the system, showcasing the Army’s accelerated approach to innovation in the face of evolving threats.
The Army continuously transforms by using the latest technologies for warfighting advantage, and ensures that the force is lethal, modern and ready. The development of this air-delivered munition directly supports that mission as well as senior leader priorities in readiness and transformation.
The BRAKER project, led by a team from the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command Armaments Center and Project Manager Close Combat Systems — a project office under the U.S. Army Capability Program Executive Ammunition and Energetics — aimed to create a lightweight, powerful and lethal warhead that could be deployed from a small, agile drone.
“Our Picatinny team went from concept to live-fire in two weeks,” said Col. Vincent Morris, Project Manager Close Combat Systems. “BRAKER proves our ability to rapidly develop and safely deliver devastating effects from small unmanned aircraft systems. We are now creating the architecture with Picatinny Common Lethality Integration Kit and the small universal payload interface for industry to scale this critical warfighter advantage.”
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The Picatinny CLIK is a safe and effective method for integrating lethal payloads with UAS platforms, designed and developed by DEVCOM Armaments Center engineers.
The rapid development-to-testing timeline of BRAKER was made possible by the Army’s emphasis on additive manufacturing, also known as 3D printing.
Beginning in early March, Armaments Center engineers began design, explosive pressing, housing manufacture, and integration of the warhead to be used on a low-cost and expendable one-way attack drone.
Shortly thereafter, transfer and compatibility tests were conducted at Picatinny and approximately a dozen warheads were assembled, with one being tested on a makeshift bunker on one of the installation’s test ranges.
After proving worthiness and validating effectiveness, the prototype warheads departed Picatinny for Redstone where a live demonstration was conducted for U.S. Army leadership.
The successful detonation of the device deployed on a drone on a designated target demonstrates a new and potent capability for the modern warfighter and illustrates how engineers can quickly design, fabricate, and integrate hardware to meet urgent and compelling needs.
“Rapid demonstrations of overwhelming lethality such as BRAKER are attributed to years of continued technology investments and the organic core technical competencies and facilities resident at the DEVCOM Armaments Center,” said Anthony Sebasto, executive director, Munitions Engineering and Technology Center.
Source: United States Department of Justice
The Justice Department today announced the availability of $300 million in funding to prevent and prosecute fraud and other crimes nationwide. The new Special Attorneys Program notice of funding opportunity will support state, local, Tribal, and territorial prosecuting agencies in designating qualified prosecutors to serve as Special Attorneys within the Department’s National Fraud Enforcement Division or Criminal Division, or as Special Assistant United States Attorneys within a United States Attorney’s Office.
This grant program will strengthen investigative and prosecutorial capacity, expand intergovernmental coordination, and enhance the ability of jurisdictions to investigate and prosecute fraud and other crimes committed by criminal aliens within the United States and drug and human trafficking crimes.
“This unprecedented funding opportunity is part of the Department of Justice’s historic effort to activate every available tool to secure the physical and financial security of our nation,” said Colin McDonald, Assistant Attorney General for the National Fraud Enforcement Division. “We invite prosecutors across the country to join the mission to eliminate fraud, defeat the drug cartels, and rescue victims of trafficking.”
Department of Justice efforts to combat fraud support President Trump’s Task Force to Eliminate Fraud, a whole-of-government effort chaired by Vice President J.D. Vance to eliminate fraud, waste, and abuse within Federal benefit programs.
Source: United States Department of Justice Criminal Division
Baltimore, Maryland – A Maryland man, who previously decided to stand trial stemming from bank-fraud crimes, changed his mind and pled guilty on the first day of his federal trial. Eric Tano Tataw, 39, of Gaithersburg, Maryland, pled guilty to bank fraud in connection with multiple fraudulent COVID-19 relief loans for his company, National Telegraph, LLC.