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Source: United States Department of Justice Criminal Division

The Justice Department today announced that it has reached a settlement with CarMax Inc., the nation’s largest retailer of used cars, to resolve allegations that CarMax violated the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (SCRA) by illegally repossessing motor vehicles owned by members of the military. As part of the settlement, CarMax will pay at least $420,000 in damages to servicemembers and a civil penalty of $79,380 to the United States.

“Federal law prohibits businesses from repossessing service members’ vehicles without a court order,” said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “The Department of Justice is proud to defend the rights of those who serve in our military and will continue to vigorously enforce the laws that protect them.”

The Department alleges that CarMax repossessed servicemember vehicles without obtaining court orders as required by federal law, as well as repossessed some vehicles even after owners told CarMax that they were in military service. CarMax also allegedly failed to extend SCRA protections to reservists who had received orders to report for active duty. In addition to paying a civil penalty and compensation to harmed individuals, CarMax will revise its policies and procedures to ensure that the rights of U.S. servicemembers are protected in the future.

The SCRA is a federal law that provides legal and financial protections for servicemembers and their families. The law prevents an auto finance or leasing company from repossessing a servicemember’s vehicle without first obtaining a court order, as long as the servicemember made at least one payment on the vehicle before entering military service. For members of a reserve component, the protections begin on the date the member receives orders to military service.

This case was handled by the Civil Rights Division’s Housing and Civil Enforcement Section and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia. Since 2011, the Department has obtained over $484 million in monetary relief for over 149,000 servicemembers through its enforcement of the SCRA. For more information about the department’s SCRA enforcement efforts, please visit www.servicemembers.gov.

Servicemembers and their dependents who believe that their rights under the SCRA may have been violated should contact the nearest Armed Forces Legal Assistance Program Office. Office locations can be found at legalassistance.law.af.mil.

Source: United States Department of Justice Criminal Division

A Pennsylvania man has been arrested and federally charged after grooming a girl who recently turned 13 years old to send him sexually explicit material of herself and images of self-harm over the internet, a pattern of abuse consistent with nihilistic violent extremist (NVE) ideology that culminated in law enforcement rescuing her at a Santa Clarita Valley motel.

Source: United States Department of Justice Criminal Division

WASHINGTON – Today, the Justice Department (“the Department”) notified the Special School District of St. Louis, Missouri (“the District”) that it found the District’s seclusion and restraint practices violate Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act. After a twenty-one month investigation, the Department concluded that the District discriminates against students with disabilities by routinely subjecting them to ineffective seclusion practices that are highly susceptible to abuse and restraints without justification, rather than providing the interventions and supports they need to receive the education they are guaranteed by federal law.

During the two-year period covered by the investigation, the District secluded over 300 students almost 4,000 times and restrained almost 150 students 777 times. One District school that enrolled less than 100 students used seclusion 1,667 times.  Every student who attended that school was secluded or restrained at least once during the investigative period.  At another school a student spent 101 hours, or the equivalent of 17 school days, in seclusion during a single school year.

“The Justice Department will not tolerate the abuse of our most vulnerable students,” said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Department’s Civil Rights Division. “Parents should not have to worry that their children could be subjected to solitary confinement and dangerous restraint techniques at school because of their disabilities. This Civil Rights Division will put an end to these unlawful practices everywhere we find them.”

These numbers demonstrate that the use of restraint and seclusion is routine, not a crisis response to be used in rare emergencies that pose a safety threat—the only time they are allowed under Missouri law.  For example, students were secluded for knocking over a teacher’s coffee, refusing to go into music class, or being “disrespectful.” The Department also found that the District routinely uses seclusion in cases where students engage in self-harm and other concerning behaviors, putting students at serious risk of physical and mental harm. The full findings letter can be found here.

The Department is hopeful the District will agree to the reforms needed to remedy these gross violations of federal law.  To that end, the Department has proposed a settlement agreement to the District in conjunction with issuing its findings.

Additional information about the Civil Rights Division is available on its website at www.justice.gov/crt, and additional information about the Civil Rights Division’s Educational Opportunities Section’s work to combat disability discrimination including by improper seclusion and restraint is available at www.justice.gov/crt/educational-opportunities-section.

Members of the public may report possible civil rights violations at www.civilrights.justice.gov/.

Source: United States Department of Justice Criminal Division

Orlando, Florida– A federal jury has found Montrey Roseberry (20, Orlando) guilty of three counts of coercion and enticement of a minor to engage in sexual activity, three counts of production of child sexual abuse material, and one count of possession of child sexual abuse material (CSAM). Roseberry faces a maximum penalty of life in federal prison. His sentencing hearing is scheduled for May 28, 2026. U.S. Attorney Gregory W. Kehoe made the announcement.

Source: United States Department of Justice Criminal Division

A federal grand jury returned a 35-count indictment, unsealed Friday, charging three Mexican citizens for trafficking Mexican farmworkers into forced labor and harboring them in the United States after their visas expired for the defendants’ financial gain.

“Three individuals have been indicted for exploiting the H-2A visa program to lure vulnerable workers from Mexico to the United States with promises of legitimate employment, only to then confiscate their identity documents and force them to labor in inhumane conditions,” said Assistant Attorney General A. Tysen Duva of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division. “These charges reflect the Department’s commitment to protecting the integrity of our lawful immigration system and holding accountable those who corrupt it to exploit and abuse foreign workers. The Criminal Division will continue to investigate and prosecute forced labor and human trafficking wherever it occurs.”

“We will find and eradicate any illegal immigration we find here in the EDNC,” said U.S. Attorney Ellis Boyle for the Eastern District of North Carolina (EDNC). “We do not tolerate abuse of the system to hurt unsuspecting victims of human trafficking.” 

According to court documents, Martha Zeferino Jose, 42, a permanent resident of the United States and citizen of Mexico, owned and operated Las Princesas Corporation (Las Princesas), a farm labor contracting company based in Washington, North Carolina that recruited workers from Mexico to come to the United States on temporary H-2A agricultural visas. She ran Las Princesas alongside her partner (John Doe), identified at the time of arrest as Jose Rodriguez Munoz, a citizen of Mexico illegally residing in the United States, and her son Jeremy Zeferino Jose, 23, a permanent resident of the United States and citizen of Mexico.

Between approximately August 2021 and July 2022, Martha Zeferino Jose allegedly submitted fraudulent applications to the Department of Labor and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services in which she falsely certified that Las Princesas would comply with all required employment conditions and labor laws – including promises not to charge workers recruitment fees, not to confiscate their documents, and to provide proper wages, meals, housing, and transportation. According to the indictment, Martha Zeferino Jose never intended to honor those commitments.

Recruiters working for Las Princesas allegedly charged the workers significant fees for the opportunity to come to the United States, saddling them with debt before they even arrived. Once the workers were in the country, the defendants allegedly confiscated their passports, visas, and identification documents to prevent them from leaving. The workers were then allegedly compelled to perform physically demanding labor at farms and plant nurseries across three states under degrading conditions. According to the indictment, the defendants made the workers labor for extensive hours without adequate breaks or access to water; housed them in crowded, unsanitary residences that lacked heat, air conditioning, hot water and bedding; failed to pay required wages; withheld food; and denied medical care.

The defendants allegedly imposed strict rules to keep the workers isolated and under their control – prohibiting them from leaving, going anywhere alone, or speaking with people outside the group. They allegedly monitored the workers’ activities and created a climate of fear by threatening to report workers to immigration authorities, have them arrested and deported, and ensure they lost future employment opportunities. When some workers’ H-2A visas expired, the defendants allegedly told workers to stay in the country rather than informing them of their legal obligation to depart and then harbored the workers with expired visas in residences and at worksites for the defendants’ own financial benefit.

When the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division launched an investigation into Las Princesas, Martha Zeferino Jose and her partner allegedly obstructed the investigation. According to the indictment, Martha Zeferino Jose returned the workers’ confiscated passports and identification documents before investigators arrived and instructed the workers to tell investigators that everything was fine and that Las Princesas had never taken their documents. Munoz allegedly threatened the workers that they would be deported if they told investigators the truth.

Each of the defendants is charged with forced labor, conspiracy to commit forced labor, alien harboring for financial gain, conspiracy to commit alien harboring for financial gain, and document servitude offenses. Additionally, Martha Zeferino Jose is charged with visa fraud, Munoz is charged with obstruction, and they are both charged with conspiracy to obstruct proceedings before agencies. If convicted, the defendants face maximum penalties of 20 years in prison for each count of forced labor and conspiracy to commit forced labor, 10 years in prison for each count of alien harboring for financial gain and conspiracy to commit alien harboring for financial gain, and five years in prison for document servitude. Additionally, Martha Zeferino Jose faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison for visa fraud, Munoz faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison for obstruction, and Martha Zeferino Jose and Munoz face a maximum penalty of five years in prison for conspiracy to commit obstruction. 

Homeland Security Investigations and the U.S. Department of Labor, Office of the Inspector General are investigating the case. The U.S. Marshals Service provided valuable assistance.

Trial Attorney Matthew Thiman of the Criminal Division’s Human Rights and Special Prosecutions Section and Assistant U.S. Attorney Erin Blondel for the Eastern District of North Carolina are prosecuting the case.

Anyone who has information about human trafficking should report that information to the National Human Trafficking Hotline toll-free at 1-888-373-7888, which is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. For more information about human trafficking, please visit www.humantraffickinghotline.org. Information on the Department of Justice’s efforts to combat human trafficking can be found at www.justice.gov/humantrafficking.

An indictment is merely an allegation. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.

Source: United States Department of Justice Criminal Division

BOSTON – A Dominican national who used the alias, “Jose Perez Antonio,” and who unlawfully resided in Dorchester has been charged with illegally reentering the United States after having been deported on three separate occasions. The defendant has previously been convicted of drug trafficking, aggravated identity theft and wire fraud dating as far back as 1997.  

Source: United States Department of Justice Criminal Division

ABINGDON, Va. – A Tennessee man, who trafficked fentanyl-laced pills and fentanyl powder into Southwest Virginia, pled guilty recently in U.S. District Court in Abingdon.Jermaine Crayton Jr., 20, pled guilty recently to one count of conspiracy to possess with the intent to distribute and distribute 400 grams or more of fentanyl and one count of possession with the intent to distribute 40 grams or more of fentanyl.

Source: United States Department of Justice Criminal Division

PHOENIX, Ariz. – During the week of enforcement operations from Feb. 14 through Feb. 20, 2026, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Arizona brought immigration-related criminal charges against 179 individuals. Specifically, the United States filed 112 cases in which aliens illegally re-entered the United States, and the United States also charged 53 aliens for illegally entering the United States. In its ongoing effort to deter unlawful immigration, the United States filed 13 cases against 14 individuals responsible for smuggling illegal aliens into and within the District of Arizona