Source: United States Attorneys General
Headline: Maryland U.S. Attorney’s Office Collects Over $122 Million In Civil And Criminal Actions For U.S. Taxpayers In Fiscal Year 2017
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact ELIZABETH MORSE
www.justice.gov/usao/md at (410) 209-4885
Baltimore, Maryland – Acting United States Attorney Stephen M. Schenning announced that the District of Maryland collected $122,236,532.64 in criminal and civil actions in Fiscal Year 2017. Of this amount, $12,749,554.70 was collected in civil actions and $109,486,977.94 was collected in criminal actions.
Additionally, the District of Maryland worked with other U.S. Attorney’s Offices and components of the Department of Justice to collect an additional $36,033,331.72 in cases pursued jointly with these offices. Of this amount, $35,737,378.12 was collected in civil actions and $295,953.60 was collected in criminal actions.
Overall, the Justice Department collected just over $15 billion in civil and criminal actions in the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2017.
The statistics show that the $12,749,554.70 collected in civil actions in Maryland, include affirmative civil enforcement cases, in which the United States recovered government money lost to fraud or other misconduct or collected penalties imposed on individuals and/or corporations. These recoveries reflect civil enforcement actions for violations of federal health, safety, civil rights or environmental laws, and debts collected on behalf of several federal agencies, including the Department of Defense, the Department of Treasury, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the Drug Enforcement Administration.
These cases include the successful resolution of False Claims Act investigations against AC4S, Inc., to settle allegations that it submitted inflated invoices to the government for work performed at Joint Base Andrews; Comprehensive Health Services, Inc., to settle allegations that it knowingly double-charged for vision screenings and electrocardiograms when those costs were included in the bundled contract price for medical exams performed for IRS Special Agents; and Dr. Hitesh Patel and Dr. Darab Hormozi to settle allegations that they billed false claims to Medicare. Additionally, the District of Maryland collected civil penalties under the Controlled Substances Act on behalf of the Drug Enforcement Administration from its investigation of Cardinal Health for failing to report suspicious orders of controlled substances to the DEA.
The U.S. Attorneys’ Offices, along with Department of Justice litigating divisions, are responsible for enforcing and collecting civil and criminal debts owed to the U.S. and criminal debts owed to federal crime victims. The law requires defendants to pay restitution to victims of certain federal crimes who have suffered a physical injury or financial loss. While restitution is paid to the victim, criminal fines and felony assessments are paid to the Department of Justice Crime Victims’ Fund, which distributes the funds to state victim compensation and victim assistance programs.
The largest civil collections were from affirmative civil enforcement cases, in which the United States recovered government money lost to fraud or other misconduct or collected fines imposed on individuals and/or corporations for violations of federal health, safety, civil rights or environmental laws. In addition, civil debts were collected on behalf of several federal agencies, including the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Health and Human Services, Internal Revenue Service, Small Business Administration and Department of Education.
Additionally, the U.S. Attorney’s office in the District of Maryland, working with partner agencies and divisions, collected $9,876,957 in asset forfeiture actions in FY 2017. Forfeited assets deposited into the Department of Justice Assets Forfeiture Fund are used to restore funds to crime victims and for a variety of law enforcement purposes.