U.S. Department of Justice News

U.S. Sues AmerisourceBergen, Says Distributor Helped Ignite Opioid Epidemic

The U.S. government filed a lawsuit accusing AmerisourceBergen Corp., one of the nation’s largest drug distributors, of helping ignite the nation’s deadly opioid epidemic by failing to report hundreds of thousands of suspicious orders of prescription painkillers. In a Dec. …

3 Iranian Citizens Charged in Broad Hacking Campaign in US

The Justice Department said Wednesday that three Iranian citizens have been charged in the United States with ransomware attacks that targeted power companies, local governments and small businesses and nonprofits, including a domestic violence shelter. The charges accuse the hacking …

Justice Department Starts Probe Into Louisiana State Police

The U.S. Justice Department is opening a “pattern-or-practice” investigation into the Louisiana State Police amid mounting evidence that the agency has looked the other way in the face of beatings of mostly Black men, including the deadly 2019 arrest of …

U.S. Narrows Scope of Anti-Hacking Law Long Hated by Critics

The Department of Justice is changing its policy around a controversial anti-hacking law, addressing longstanding complaints from cybersecurity researchers that the law could criminalize good-faith efforts to improve technology. The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, or CFAA, is a federal …

Purdue Pharma Squares Off With DOJ Over $6 Billion OxyContin Deal

A $6 billion deal hangs in the balance as OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma LP and its wealthy owners square off against the U.S. Justice Department over the firm’s opioid lawsuit settlement. The sides will meet in a New York courtroom …

New Jersey Landlord Accused of Demanding Sex from Tenants to Pay $4.5M

A landlord accused of demanding sex from his low-income tenants under threat of eviction or in exchange for helping them receive rent assistance will pay more than $4 million to settle a federal lawsuit, the U.S. Department of Justice announced. …

New York Man Charged with Murdering Woman in Murder-for-Hire Scheme

A Queens, New York, man has been charged with murdering a woman for life insurance benefits. A superseding indictment was filed in federal court in Brooklyn charging Cory Martin with murder-for-hire and conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire. Martin was previously charged …

Houston Doc Found Guilty of Illegally Prescribing More Than 1.3M Doses of Opioids

A federal jury convicted a Houston-area physician for unlawfully prescribing more than 1.3 million doses of opioids, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Texas reported. According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, Parvez Qureshi, 56, …

Maryland Couple Indicted in $20M Insurance Fraud Scheme

A federal district court in Baltimore, Maryland, unsealed an indictment charging a Maryland couple with conspiracy to commit insurance fraud and related charges for money laundering, filing false tax returns and identity theft. The indictment charges that from 1996 to …

Oklahoma City Landlords Settle Federal Sex Harassment Claims for $1.25M

Federal officials and several Oklahoma City-based landlords have reached an agreement to settle claims of sexual harassment of their tenants by their agent. The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Oklahoma …