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Source: US FBI

Defendant and husband used fraudulently obtained funds for vacations, home renovations, pet expenses, and retail purchases.

Source: US FBI

BOSTON – A Boston man has been arrested and charged for allegedly receiving child sexual abuse material (CSAM).

Cess Frazier, 32, has been charged with one count of receipt of child pornography. Frazier was arrested at his residence yesterday and made his initial appearance in federal court in Boston. He has been ordered detained pending a hearing scheduled for May 1, 2025.

According to the charging documents, an ongoing investigation into the dissemination of CSAM allegedly identified Frazier as an individual who had purchased CSAM. During a search of Frazier’s cell phone approximately 100 media files that depicted CSAM were allegedly found saved in Telegram Messenger. The minor victims in the files are alleged to be between approximately three and 10 years old.  

Members of the public who have questions, concerns or information regarding this case should call 617-748-3274 or contact USAMA.VictimAssistance@usdoj.gov.

The charge of receipt of child pornography provides for a sentence of at least five years and up to 20 years in prison, at least five years and up to a lifetime of supervised release and a fine of up to $250,000. Sentences are imposed by a federal district court judge based upon the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and statutes which govern the determination of a sentence in a criminal case.

United States Attorney Leah B. Foley and James Crowley, Acting Special Agent in Charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Boston Division made the announcement today. Valuable assistance was provided by the Boston Police Department. Assistant U.S. Attorney Allegra Flamm of the Major Crimes Unit is prosecuting the case.

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse, launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice. Led by the U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and the DOJ’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state and local resources to locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who exploit children, as well as identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit https://www.justice.gov/psc.

The details contained in the charging documents are allegations. The defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.

Source: US FBI

LAKE CHARLES, La. – Acting United States Attorney Alexander C. Van Hook announced that Bracelon Armon Charles, 22, of Sunset, Louisiana, has been sentenced by United States District Judge James D. Cain, Jr. to 155 months (12 years, 11 months) in prison, followed by 5 years of supervised release, for brandishing a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence.  

According to information presented in court, on or about October 6, 2023, Charles and a juvenile used a 2018 Kia which had been stolen from a residence in Lafayette, to drive to Vinton, Louisiana. Charles and the juvenile entered Tiger Mart, a gas station and convenience store located in Vinton, and entered the store brandishing firearms and demanded money from the store clerk. The clerk complied and gave them money from the cash register in the amount of $400. Charles and the juvenile immediately left the Tiger Mart.

Just minutes later, Charles and the juvenile entered More 4 Less, another gas station and convenience store in Vinton. As in the previous store just minutes before, Charles and the juvenile brandished their firearms and demanded money from the store clerk as they pointed their firearms at the clerk. The clerk complied and gave all the money in the cash drawer over to Charles and the juvenile, which was $400.

Charles and the juvenile then traveled into Texas where law enforcement officers engaged them in a high speed chase back into Louisiana where they were subsequently apprehended. Charles was charged in a federal indictment and pleaded guilty to using or carrying a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence. 

The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Calcasieu Parish Sheriff’s Office and prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Lauren L. Gardner.

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Source: US FBI

Acting United States Attorney April M. Leon announced that U.S. Chief Judge Shelly D. Dick sentenced Jonathan Wayne Lanaute, age 40, of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, to 151 months in federal prison following his conviction for bank robbery. The Court further sentenced Lanaute to serve three years of supervised release following his term of imprisonment and ordered him to pay $20,000 in restitution.

According to admissions made as part of his guilty plea, on the morning of May 3, 2024, Lanaute entered United Community Bank, located on Bluebonnet Boulevard in Baton Rouge, and stated that he needed to cash a check. He approached a counter and passed a handwritten note to the bank teller which stated, “give me all the money in the cash resgister [sic] before everybody die in here.” The teller, fearful of bodily harm, directed the bank’s computer to begin dispensing $100 bills. While waiting for the bills to be dispensed, Lanaute was fidgeting in his sweatshirt pockets as if he had a firearm. He told the teller to “hurry up, hurry up,” and not to make any moves.   

The machine dispensed fifty $100 bills at a time and ran through four (4) cycles. When complete, Lanaute took the money from the teller and walked towards the bank to leave. Before exiting the building, he heard the machine continuing to dispense money and he returned to the teller counter to retrieve the additional bills before finally exiting the building with $20,000.   

Law enforcement was dispatched to the scene and retrieved video footage from the bank’s surveillance system. The surveillance footage showed Lanaute entering the bank wearing a grey hooded sweatshirt and a black Saints baseball cap, and ultimately fleeing the scene in a dark colored sedan with a spoiler on the rear of the vehicle. Law enforcement identified the vehicle as a dark grey Mitsubishi Lancer which had been reported stolen during an armed robbery near the bank the previous night.   

The vehicle was identified around the immediate area of United Community Bank and law enforcement visually confirmed the driver to be the same individual identified as the robber from the bank’s video surveillance. Officers attempted a traffic stop of the vehicle. Lanaute refused to stop and a vehicle pursuit ensued. During the pursuit, he drove the vehicle into ongoing traffic, ran another motorist off the road, and drove in the wrong direction on the interstate. The pursuit of the vehicle ended when the driver crashed head-on into an innocent motorist on the interstate.

After the crash, Lanaute fled on foot. Following a short foot pursuit, he was apprehended and taken into custody. Lanaute was wearing the same clothing as seen in the bank’s video surveillance.  Approximately $8,207.89 was recovered from his person.

This case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Baton Rouge Police Department, and the East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff’s Office, and was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Kristen Lundin Craig.

Source: US FBI

According to court documents, on or about April 10, 2025, PEREZ-GUTIERREZ, an individual unlawfully present in the United States, was found in possession of a Glock handgun.  He was arrested by the New Orleans Police Department, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement – Enforcement and Removal Operations officers, for violating immigration and federal gun control laws.

If convicted, PEREZ-GUTIERREZ faces a maximum penalty of 15 years of imprisonment, up to a $250,000 fine, up to three years of supervised release, and a $100 mandatory special assessment fee.

Acting U.S. Attorney Simpson reiterated that an indictment is merely a charge and that the guilt of the defendant must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.

Acting U.S. Attorney Simpsonpraised the work of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement – Enforcement and Removal Operations, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the New Orleans Police Department in investigating this matter. Assistant United States Attorney Spiro G. Latsis of the General Crimes Unit is in charge of the prosecution.

This case is part of Operation Take Back America [link], a nationwide initiative that marshals the full resources of the Department of Justice to repel the invasion of illegal immigration, achieve the total elimination of cartels and transnational criminal organizations (TCOs), and protect our communities from the perpetrators of violent crime. Operation Take Back America streamlines efforts and resources from the Department’s Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces (OCDETFs) and Project Safe Neighborhood (PSN).

Source: US FBI

CHICAGO — A federal judge in Chicago has sentenced a real estate developer to more than six years in prison for participating in a conspiracy that embezzled millions of dollars from the failed Washington Federal Bank for Savings in Chicago.

Washington Federal, which was based in Chicago’s Bridgeport neighborhood, was shut down in 2017 after the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency determined that the bank was insolvent and had at least $66 million in nonperforming loans. For more than a decade, developer MIROSLAW KREJZA was part of a conspiracy that embezzled millions of dollars in bank funds.  The embezzled funds were disguised as purported real estate development loan disbursements to Krejza and others.  The conspirators were not required to repay these purported loans, and they never did.

A federal jury in 2023 convicted Krejza, 67, of Chicago, of conspiring to commit embezzlement and falsify bank records, and aiding and abetting embezzlement by bank employees.  On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Virginia M. Kendall sentenced Krejza to six years and eight months in prison and ordered him to pay more than $2 million in restitution.

The sentence was announced by Andrew S. Boutros, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois; Vincent R. Zehme, Special Agent-in-Charge of the Chicago Region of the FDIC’s Office of Inspector General; Douglas S. DePodesta, Special Agent-in-Charge of the Chicago Field Office of the FBI; Machelle L. Jindra, Special Agent-in-Charge of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Office of Inspector General in Chicago; Ramsey E. Covington, Acting Special Agent-in-Charge of IRS Criminal Investigation in Chicago; Korey Brinkman, Special Agent-in-Charge of the Central Region of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, Office of Inspector General; Andrea Peacock, Special Agent-in-Charge of the Department of the Treasury, Office of Inspector General; Deborah Witzburg, City of Chicago Inspector General; and Kathryn B. Richards, Chicago Housing Authority Inspector General.  Valuable assistance was provided by the U.S. Trustee Program.  The government was represented by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Michelle Petersen, Kristin Pinkston, and Jeffrey Snell, and Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Brian Netols.

The federal investigation into the collapse of Washington Federal led to criminal charges against 16 defendants, including the bank’s Chief Financial Officer, Treasurer, and other high-ranking employees, for conspiring to embezzle at least $31 million in bank funds.   Krejza and three others were convicted after jury trials, while ten defendants pleaded guilty and two entered into deferred prosecution agreements.

Much of the embezzled money was transferred to Chicago attorney ROBERT M. KOWALSKI, real estate developer MAREK MATCZUK, and other individuals outside the bank without all of the required documentation and often without any documentation whatsoever.  A jury convicted Robert Kowalski on bankruptcy fraud, bank embezzlement, and tax charges, while Matczuk was convicted of conspiring to commit embezzlement and falsify bank records, as well as aiding and abetting embezzlement by bank employees.  Judge Kendall last year sentenced Robert Kowalski to 25 years in federal prison and Matczuk to nearly 13 years.

Robert Kowalski’s sister, JAN R. KOWALSKI, also an attorney, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to more than three years in prison for fraudulently enabling her brother to conceal more than $357,000 from creditors and the trustee in his bankruptcy case.

Three former members of Washington Federal’s Board of Directors pleaded guilty to conspiring to falsify bank records to deceive the OCC.  WILLIAM M. MAHON was sentenced to 18 months in prison; GEORGE F. KOZDEMBA was sentenced to a year in prison; and JANICE M. WESTON was sentenced to three months in prison.

Source: US FBI

Seeking Victims and Witnesses

In the meantime, O’Donnell and Burke continued their investigation. They believed that interviews with Roggio’s former employees—largely Estonians, but also other Europeans who’d been handpicked by his special assistant—could help strengthen the case. And that gut feeling proved right.

When the duo learned that a former female employee of Roggio’s—an Estonian citizen—was slated to travel through John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, they worked with Estonia’s Internal Security Service to interview her about her experience with Roggio. The woman turned out to be the first international employee of Roggio’s weapons facility. She shared enough information with O’Donnell and Burke to justify a trip to Estonia to conduct a more in-depth interview with her in a friendlier setting.

Investigators hoped that the interview could help them put the finishing touches on their counterproliferation investigation. But that trip yielded more than just a follow-up conversation.

It also gave investigators the chance to meet a second former weapons factory employee, who surprised the investigators with a six-year-old cellphone recording that captured Roggio making threats of torture, confessing to that and other crimes, and even speaking to motive.

This was the first time they’d heard torture allegations concerning Roggio.

After interviewing these and other former employees, investigators returned to the U.S. with a case, having identified a new and urgent objective: to seek guidance and expertise from the FBI’s International Human Rights Unit to seek a potential prosecution for torture violations.

The FBI is responsible for investigating torture if the victim is a U.S. person, or if the perpetuator is either a U.S. person or if they’re physically located within our country’s borders. This jurisdiction comes from 18 USC, Section 2340A.

The agents knew they had to act quickly—and carefully.

Careful collaboration between the case team, the FBI’s International Human Rights Unit (part of our Criminal Investigative Division), federal victim services providers, multiple FBI legal attaché offices, the U.S. Department of Justice, and our Estonian law enforcement partners enabled the case team to travel to Estonia to conduct forensic interviews with these subjects.

The investigators got the greenlight to take a joint trip with DOJ prosecutors to explore the matter of torture in great detail. The investigative team leveraged their agencies’ resources and connections, as well as international partnerships, to locate and interview multiple former employees of Roggio’s who may have witnessed or been victims of torture.

FBI Supervisory Child-Adolescent Forensic Interviewer Jacqueline Goldstein—who, at the time, held a similar role at HSI—helped ensure these conversations were cognizant of the trauma that these people’s experiences with Roggio may have left them with, while still being admissible in court and supporting investigative needs.

“It’s designed to pass judicial scrutiny,” she said. “So it’s non-leading, non-suggestive. But it’s also trauma-informed so that the investigative interviewing process is uniquely suited to the developmental, cognitive, clinical needs of that individual, and we’re not creating additional trauma in that investigative process.”

And with that, in August 2021, investigators were finally able to interview Roggio’s victim: a man who’d been held in captivity and subjected to physical and mental torture—including physical beatings, suffocation, and choking—for more than a month.

“He had very vivid recollection,” O’Donnell said. “Some people blacked out everything. This guy remembered every detail of a lot of what happened.”

Law enforcement also captured statements from a wider group of former employees who’d been forced to witness Roggio’s brutality against the victim. They also convinced the witnesses to travel to the United States to testify against Roggio in federal court.

As a result of these efforts, a federal grand jury returned a superseding indictment in 2022—which added a charge of torture and a charge of conspiracy to commit torture to Roggio’s already long list of alleged crimes—and he was again arrested.

Source: US FBI

The Director has long stood “shoulder to shoulder” with law enforcement, but said when those charged with protecting people commit criminal acts it’s particularly egregious. 

“It’s a discredit to those scores and scores of brave men and women who do the job the right way, each and every day,” Wray said. “When law enforcement or corrections officers operate as though they’re above the law, they’re not just depriving victims of their civil rights; they’re degrading the public’s trust in everyone else in law enforcement, and in our criminal justice system as a whole, one violation at a time.”

There were more hate crimes charges last year than in any year since turn of century, the Director said. In the case examples he provided, Wray described outcomes that showed justice ultimately prevailing. 

The shooter in the Tops Supermarket case received multiple life sentences and still faces 27 federal charges, including 13 for hate crimes. The six police officers in Mississippi who mercilessly tortured two men and then tried to cover it up pleaded guilty last August amid a mountain of evidence collected in the color-of-law investigation by our Jackson Division. Their sentences, handed down just a few weeks ago, range from 10 to 40 years. FBI Birmingham’s investigation of the corrections officer who beat a 60-year-old inmate to death uncovered a trail of evidence that compelled him to plead guilty last December. He is now behind bars in a federal prisoner serving a seven-year sentence.

“Hate crimes are messenger crimes. They intend to incite terror,” Kristen Clarke, Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, said in her remarks. “Our prosecutions are sending a louder message that hate crimes will not be tolerated.” 

“No one is above the law,” Wray said, “And the FBI will continue investigating color-of-law abuses as one of our most important responsibilities.”

Source: US FBI

Source: US FBI

The Importance of U.S.-Persons Queries 

According to Wray, U.S.-persons queries are usually conducted in the early stages of an investigation—when it’s usually still too early to “establish probable cause or demonstrate” urgency.  

These queries can help the FBI connect the dots between bad actors and their intended targets—or between bad actors and their criminal networks—so the Bureau can prevent attacks before they happen.  

And since every second counts when you’re racing to outpace a threat, any potential delay in obtaining threat intelligence could potentially cost lives.  

For example, in 2023, the FBI was able to prevent a potential attack on U.S. critical infrastructure by a U.S. person who’d done relevant research and preparation and who’d been in touch with a foreign terrorist, Wray said. “Only by querying that U.S. person’s identifiers in our 702 collection did we find important intelligence on the seriousness and urgency of the threat,” he explained. 

Wray said the FBI was able to disrupt the would-be attacker less than a month after it conducted its first Section 702 query related to that subject. But, he noted, this query would’ve been impossible if a warrant requirement had been in place due to probable cause and exigency. “And if we hadn’t done that query, we would’ve lost valuable time we needed to get ahead of the potential attack,” he said. 

The Bureau’s ability to run U.S.-persons queries also allowed us to gain awareness that Chinese hackers had compromised a U.S. transportation hub’s network and flag the intrusion to hub personnel so they could respond, Wray said. 

“Who knows how much damage those hackers could have caused—not just monetarily, but in the disruption and even the safety of Americans’ lives,” Wray said. “Effective and prompt victim notifications like those hinge on our ability to conduct U.S.-person queries of our existing 702 collection.” 

Addressing Legal and Compliance Questions 

Neither the Fourth Amendment, nor the law, require the FBI to obtain a warrant before it can run a search against data collected under our Section 702 authorities, Wray added. 

“Multiple federal district courts and appellate courts have considered the issue, and no court has ever held that a warrant is required for the FBI to conduct U.S.-person queries—to blind ourselves from information already lawfully in our holdings,” he said. “And when the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court renews the 702 program every year, not once has it found that the law requires a warrant to conduct U.S.-person queries.” 

He also stressed that a warrant requirement isn’t necessary to ensure that the FBI follows the law when it runs Section 702 queries. “We’ve proven that,” he said. “I’ve been unequivocal that the compliance incidents we’ve had in the past are unacceptable. And in response, we’ve undertaken a whole host of reforms to ensure that we’re good stewards of this authority.”  

Both the U.S. Department of Justice and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court “have recognized that our reforms have resulted in substantial compliance improvements, hitting compliance rates well into the high 90% range,” he noted, adding that the FBI will continue to brainstorm ways to further improve those rates. 

Finally, he noted said that lawyers are critical to helping the general public make sense of law, policy, and the definition of a warrant, “and to help illuminate the consequences of purposefully choosing to limit the American Intelligence Community from accessing key and timely information about our foreign adversaries.” 

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