The U.S. Department of Justice more than tripled the amount of money collected through criminal and civil actions by adding
$6.64 million to government coffers in fiscal year 2023.
The majority of the ill-gotten gains, $6.36 million, was collected in criminal actions, and $278,322 was collected in civil actions, according to the office of U.S. Attorney Clare E. Connors.
Connors’ office worked with federal prosecutors in other jurisdictions and “components of the Department of Justice” to collect an additional $425,477 in civil cases pursued jointly by these offices, according to a release from the U.S. Attorney’s office.
Last fiscal year’s haul was more than the $2.09 million in criminal and civil actions collected in fiscal year
2022. Of that 2022 amount, $1.53 million was collected in criminal actions, and $554,364 was collected in civil actions.
Law enforcement partners at the county and state level work with the Federal Bureau of Investigation; U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration; Homeland Security Investigations; Bureau of
Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; INTERPOL Washington; and other divisions of the sprawling network of federal agencies to help make the cases that
result in the financial
penalties.
“The imposition of financial penalties and restitution obligations are critical to achieving justice for violations of our criminal and civil laws,” said Connors in a statement. “Obtaining money in satisfaction of a criminal sentence or civil judgment is particularly important and remains one of our foremost objectives.”
In 2023 the District of Hawaii recovered over $3.2 million through a bankruptcy proceeding involving George Lindell, who in May 2015 was convicted after a 27-day trial of “operating an extensive Ponzi scheme” in which 166 people were duped into investing more than
$26 million.
On Sept. 16, 2016, Lindell, then 68, was sentenced to
17 years and six months in prison. Holly Hoaeae, then 41, received 10 years. In May 2015 a federal jury found Lindell and Hoaeae guilty of eight counts of mail fraud and two counts of wire fraud. Lindell was also convicted of four counts of money laundering. Both defendants were ordered to pay $8.9 million to the victims of the scheme.
The pair built an
investment scheme in connection with their business, “The Mortgage Store,” promising to pay a guaranteed rate of return of 7%.
Assistant U.S. attorneys said the defendants used radio ads, magazines and a weekly radio show to lure potential investors to attend their weekly workshops, where they taught seminars on how to use the equity in their homes for investment purposes. Lindell and Hoaeae would then use their status as mortgage brokers to refinance investor residences in order to extract the equity in investor
homes for the purposes of investment.
Another $109,000 collected came from the
May 2019 sentence of Garrett Okubo, a physical therapist convicted of submitting false claims to obtain
payment for physical
therapy services.
Okubo was ordered to pay $3.8 million in restitution, more than $3 million of it to Tricare, the health insurance program for U.S. military members, their dependants, qualified survivors and retirees. The other victims were HMSA, Medicare, Medicaid and
WellCare.
Okubo was sentenced to 3-1/2 years in prison for overbilling his clients’ health insurers by about $3.8 million.
The U.S. Attorney’s office in Hawaii, “working with partner agencies and divisions,” collected just over
$1 million in asset forfeiture actions in fiscal year 2023.
Those assets are deposited into the U.S. Department of Justice Assets Forfeiture Fund and are used to restore funds to “crime victims and for a variety of law enforcement purposes.”
The U.S. Attorney’s offices, along with the department’s litigating divisions, are responsible for “enforcing and collecting civil and criminal debts owed to the U.S. as well as 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’s Crime Victims Fund, which distributes the funds collected to federal and state victim compensation and victim assistance programs,” said Connors.
