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SANTA ANA, California – An associate of the Orange County Mexican Mafia criminal enterprise, who pleaded guilty to federal racketeering charges related to his role in the Orange County Mexican Mafia, has been sentenced to serve over five years in federal prison.

Danny “Big Shotgun” Rodriguez, 41, of Orange, was sentenced on Monday to 64 months in prison by United States District Judge Andrew J. Guilford. Rodriguez pleaded guilty last year to conspiring to violate the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act.

According to a plea agreement filed in federal court, Rodriguez’s role in the RICO conspiracy included extortion – or collecting “taxes” – from criminal street gang members and others, which enabled the Orange County Mexican Mafia to continue trafficking narcotics and to exert influence over neighborhoods. Rodriguez also distributed messages on behalf of the gang, including messages that ordered “green lights” – assaults – on gang members. The plea agreement notes that Rodriguez wrote a message ordering an assault, which led associates of the Orange County Mexican Mafia to attack an individual in custody.

The Mexican Mafia is a powerful and violent prison gang that controls drug distribution and other illegal activities within the California penal system and on the streets of Southern California by organizing Latino street gang members for the purpose of establishing a larger network for the Mexican Mafia’s illegal activities. If a street gang does not comply with the demands of the Mexican Mafia, the prison gang will order the assault or murder of the offending gang’s members, whether they are in custody or on the streets.

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Three current and former Navy officers were charged in documents unsealed today for their roles in a massive bribery and fraud scheme involving a Navy contractor.

Assistant Attorney General Leslie R. Caldwell of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney Laura E. Duffy of the Southern District of California, Acting Director Dermot O’Reilly of the Department of Defense’s Defense Criminal Investigative Service (DCIS), Director Andrew Traver of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) and Director Anita Bales of Defense Contract Audit Agency (DCAA) made the announcement.

Retired Navy Captain Michael Brooks, 57, of Fairfax Station, Virginia; Commander Bobby Pitts, 47, of Chesapeake, Virginia; and Lieutenant Commander Gentry Debord, 47, who is based in Singapore, were charged on May 25, 2016, in the Southern District of California.  Brooks and Debord were each charged with one count of conspiracy to commit bribery and Pitts was charged with one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States and two counts of obstruction of justice.  All of the charges relate to the defendants’ interactions with Leonard Francis, the former CEO of Glenn Defense Marine Asia (GDMA), a defense contracting firm based in Singapore.  Brooks and Pitts made their initial appearances today in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia; Debord appeared in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California.  Brooks was allowed to post a $50,000 bond; Pitts was granted a $5,000 bond, ordered to be subject to electronic monitoring and to appear in the Southern District of California on June 10; and Debord was granted a $40,000 bond secured by real property.  Debord is scheduled to appear for a preliminary hearing before U.S. Magistrate Judge David Bartick of the Southern District of California on June 9, 2016.

According to the indictment, from June 2006 to July 2008, Brooks served as the U.S. Naval Attaché at the U.S. Embassy in Manila, Philippines.  The indictment alleges that in exchange for travel and entertainment expenses, hotel rooms and the services of prostitutes, Brooks used his office to benefit GDMA and Francis, including securinge the quarterly diplomatic clearances for GDMA vessels, which allowed GDMA vessels to transit into and out of the Philippines under the diplomatic clearance of the U.S. Embassy; limited the amount of custom fees and taxes that GDMA was required to pay in the Philippines; and enabled GDMA to avoid inspection of any quantity or type of cargo that it transported.  The indictment also alleges that Brooks provided Francis with sensitive Navy information, including billing information belonging to a GDMA competitor and Navy ship schedules.

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LOS ANGELES – A Los Angeles-area doctor was arrested this morning after being indicted on federal “structuring” charges that allege he made hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash deposits designed to circumvent federal reporting requirement.

Dr. Washington Bryan II, 47, was arrested this morning at his residence in Westwood. Bryan is expected to be arraigned this afternoon at the United States Courthouse in downtown Los Angeles.

The 29-count indictment charges Bryan with structuring more than $400,000 in cash deposits between October 2011 and January 2013. Bryan allegedly made deposits of less than $10,000 each into four separate accounts for the purpose of preventing banks from reporting the deposits to the federal government, which is required for every cash transaction of more than $10,000.

In conjunction with Bryan’s arrest, investigators executed federal search warrants at Bryan’s residence and his Brentwood medical office. The affidavit in support of the search warrants discusses a total of $3.8 million in structured cash deposits allegedly made by Bryan as far back as December 2007. The affidavit also discusses evidence that Bryan structured the cash for the purpose of concealing income he receive from thousands of fraudulent prescriptions that he issued for narcotic painkillers and HIV medications.

According to data maintained by the State of California, Bryan issued nearly 10,000 controlled drug prescriptions over a three-year period that ended in March. According to the affidavit, 86 percent of those prescriptions were for the same two narcotic drugs, namely, oxycodone (commonly known by the brand name OxyContin) and oxymorphone (also known by the brand name Opana). Since 2006, Medicare has paid more money to pharmacies to cover Bryan’s narcotic drug prescriptions – $7.8 million – than for any other prescribing doctor in California, and he outpaced the next-highest prescriber by more than $1.6 million.

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