SAN FRANCISCO– Attorney General Kamala D. Harris today announced a $15 million settlement securing restitution for Californians who invested money with Beverly Hills-based investment adviser Stanley Chais, money that he then funneled into Bernard Madoff's notorious Ponzi scheme. Chais was respons...

LOS ANGELES– Attorney General Kamala D. Harris, along with the attorneys general of 33 other states and the District of Columbia, today announced a $41.2 million settlement with automakers Hyundai and Kia to resolve allegations that the companies misrepresented the mileage and fuel economy rating...

LOS ANGELES– Two Los Angeles-area men have been arrested on federal charges for their alleged role in a scheme to smuggle military aircraft parts and other potential defense items to Iran in violation of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) and the Iranian Transactions and San...

LOS ANGELES– A Pennsylvania man was sentenced today on felony computer hacking charges related to his illegal access of over 100 Apple and Google e-mail accounts, including those belonging to members of the entertainment industry in Los Angeles. Ryan Collins, 36, of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, was...

LOS ANGELES – Four Southern California men were charged yesterday with a federal drug trafficking offense in relation to the seizure of approximately one ton of marijuana that was discovered Tuesday on a 30-foot fishing boat in Long Beach. The interdiction represents the third major local mariti...

LOS ANGELES –A San Jacinto man affiliated with the Riverside San Jacinto First Street gang was sentenced to a decade in prison yesterday for his role in methamphetamine trafficking. Luis Miguel Castro, aka “Fat Boy,” 27, was sentenced by United States District Judge Dale S. Fischer, who found t...

Two German shipping companies that owned and operated the Motor Vessel(M/V) Nils B, pleaded guilty today to an environmental crime in federal court in San Diego before the Honorable Jan M. Adler, announced Assistant Attorney General John C. Cruden and United States Attorney Laura E. Duffy. W. Boc...

RIVERSIDE, California – The former CEO of Axium International, Inc., a leading Hollywood payroll services company until its 2008 collapse, was convicted late yesterday afternoon of tax evasion, conspiracy to defraud the IRS, and filing a false tax return. John Visconti, 74, of Beverly Hills, wa...

LOS ANGELES– A Santa Barbara-based criminal defense attorney has pled guilty to three counts of willfully failing to file tax returns and has also admitted, in his plea agreement, to willfully failing to pay his taxes for those three years as well as several additional years, costing the IRS $67...

LOS ANGELES– An Irvine man pleaded guilty today in federal court to charges of illegally flying on two separate occasions turbo-jet powered aircraft with passengers onboard without having a valid license. Arnold Gerald Leto III, 36, pleaded guilty to a two-count indictment that charged Leto wit...

LOS ANGELES– A former loan officer at Broadway Federal Bank who took more than $350,000 in kickbacks in exchange for considering mortgage applications submitted by churches in relation to a fraud scheme that resulted in losses of at least $4.2 million was sentenced today to 18 months in federal ...

SANTA ANA, California– A former resident of Orange County who now lives in northern San Diego County has been found guilty of tax evasion and lying to the IRS after applying for a passport in a false name as he attempted to flee from the prosecution. Louis Joseph Vadino, 75, currently of Ramona a...

A licensed occupational therapist pleaded guilty today in Los Angeles for his role in a $2.6 million Medicare fraud scheme that involved billing for occupational therapy services that were not provided. Assistant Attorney General Leslie R. Caldwell of the Justice Department's Criminal Division, ...

LOS ANGELES — An Inland Empire man who allegedly posed as an immigration attorney and two female accomplices face a federal indictment charging them with operating an immigration fraud scheme in which they created phony employment visas and other bogus documents for foreign nationals who were se...

A federal grand jury in Oakland, California, indicted Yevgeniy Aleksandrovich Nikulin 29, of Moscow, Russia, yesterday for obtaining information from computers, causing damage to computers, trafficking in access devices, aggravated identity theft and conspiracy, announced U.S. Attorney Brian J. S...

SANTA ANA, Calif. – An Orange County Sheriff's Department (OCSD) deputy was arrested today on charges for committing insurance fraud by failing to disclose his true physical abilities and activities to his health care providers and lying under oath. Nicholas Zappas, 36, Laguna Niguel, is charged ...

A former Palo Alto, California, based global vice president of SAP SE and two other individuals were charged in a federal indictment for their roles in a scheme to commit insider trading and money laundering that allegedly resulted in hundreds of thousands of dollars in profits. Assistant Attorne...

LOS ANGELES– Former California State Senator Ronald S. Calderon was sentenced today to 3½ years in federal prison after pleading guilty to a federal corruption charge and admitting that he accepted tens of thousands of dollars in bribes in exchange for performing official acts as a legislator. ...

SANTA ANA, California– A Brea man who operated rehabilitation clinics in Walnut, Torrance and Los Angeles has been convicted by a federal jury of defrauding Medicare out of millions of dollars. Simon Hong (who is also known as Seong Wook Hong), 54, was convicted Wednesday of eight counts of hea...

WASHINGTON– The alleged architect of a $30 million mortgage relief fraud scheme and four other former employees of a purported mortgage relief company were charged in an indictment unsealed today for their alleged participation in a conspiracy to defraud banks and homeowners. Yun Soon Matsuba, ...

A 20-year-old man has been charged with defacing the Venice POW/MIA Mural, the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office announced today. Luis Daniel Medina, aka Pheb, (dob 9/16/96) of Los Angeles faces one felony count of vandalism over $400 damage-graffiti and one misdemeanor count of posse...

SANTA ANA, Calif. – A former teacher was convicted today of sexually assaulting a 13-year-old girl. Jeffrey Scott Jones, 56, Huntington Beach, was found guilty by a jury of two felony counts of aggravated sexual assault of a child and one felony count of continuous sexual abuse. He faces a maximu...

A federal grand jury in Sacramento, California returned an indictment today charging a former Internal Revenue Service–Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI) special agent with six counts of filing false income tax returns, one count of corruptly endeavoring to obstruct the internal revenue laws, one co...

Muhanad Elfatih M.A. Badawi, 25, of Anaheim, California, was sentenced to 30 years in federal prison for conspiring with another man to provide material support to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), a designated foreign terrorist organization. The announcement was made by Acting Ass...

LOS ANGELES– A Moreno Valley man has been sentenced to nearly two decades in federal prison for advertising child pornography in a members-only online chatroom for people with a sexual interest in infants and toddlers. Angelo Harper Jr., 21, was sentenced on Monday to 235 months in prison and l...