Thanh Duy Nguyen previously pleaded guilty to 2 counts of wire fraud, the U.S. Attorney's Office said in a news release.

Nguyen ran and was the only manager of T&A Distribution, an unlicensed interstate marijuana trafficking scheme with grow houses within the Bay Area, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors said Nguyen used the deal to secure two economic injury and disaster loans from the U.S. Small Business Administration. The Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act authorized the SBA to supply EIDL loans to small businesses experiencing significant financial hardship as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Nguyen submitted the primary loan application in April 2020 and the second in June 2020. In each cases, he testified that he was not involved in any criminal activity, despite the fact that he knew his marijuana distribution business was illegal under federal law, prosecutors said. He also allegedly lied about T&A Distribution's gross revenues, operating costs and variety of employees.

In the primary application, Nguyen claimed that T&A Distribution was an “antiques/collectibles” nonprofit, and within the second application, he misrepresented T&A Distribution as a “miscellaneous services” nonprofit, prosecutors said.

According to prosecutors, Nguyen ultimately received roughly $300,000 in EIDL funds, most of which he used for his marijuana distribution business and gambling.

In addition to a 37-month prison sentence, Nguyen was sentenced to a few years of supervised release and $300,000 in restitution, prosecutors said. Nguyen will begin his sentence on February 28.

Originally published: December 21, 2024 at 7:30am PST

SAN FRANCISCO — A 22-year-old Oakland woman who commonly drove to the Tenderloin to sell fentanyl, occasionally bringing her teenage sister or young child together with her, was sentenced to just about two years in federal prison, in response to court records.

According to court documents, Juleisy Moncada-Flores was arrested last yr during an undercover police investigation in San Francisco after she showed as much as a drug deal together with her 2-year-old daughter in tow. The arrest quickly made headlines, and prosecutors added to the outrage by revealing that she had also commonly brought her 16-year-old sister to “work” on the Bay Area's best-known open-air drug market and that the 2 were trafficking drugs had business together.

“Both were previously arrested on federal drug charges in San Francisco and continued to sell drugs together until their respective arrests. “The officers began making controlled narcotics purchases from them,” prosecutors said in court papers, referring to each the teenager and Moncada-Flores.

But Moncada-Flores' lawyer says there may be a more sympathetic side to the story, which the U.S. Attorney's Office has also acknowledged. Moncada-Flores is from Honduras and witnessed her grandfather's murder in her home country when she was 11 years old. She became a mother at 15 and had her second child at 19 before being arrested within the case two years later, in response to a defense filing.

“When this offense occurred, she was in an abusive relationship with a drug dealer who yelled at her, beat her and put the lives of her and her children at risk by stealing from his suppliers, leaving Ms. Moncada-Flores on the hook for it “Assistant Federal Public Defender Angela Chuang wrote in the sentencing. “Because of all that she has been through, as a victim of human trafficking, she is entitled to immigration relief in the form of a T visa, the application for which will be filed shortly after this memorandum and will be pending at the time of sentencing.”

Prosecutors wrote a sentencing memorandum saying they agreed she regretted selling drugs and acknowledged that her “difficult and traumatic” past contributed to it. They asked for a 35-month sentence and wrote in court papers that Moncada-Flores “can be rehabilitated and has likely been sufficiently deterred from making the same decision again.”

“Despite this, Moncada-Flores participated in drug trafficking. No matter how difficult her circumstances, she had a choice, just like the many others like her who came from similar backgrounds and chose not to turn to crime,” the government's sentencing statement said. “Although she was trying to support herself and her family, her decision to sell drugs like methamphetamine and fentanyl in the Tenderloin was a selfish decision that exacerbated the ongoing and devastating misery in our communities.”

U.S. District Attorney James Donato announced the sentence at a court hearing last month. Moncada-Flores will receive credit for the yr she spent behind bars while her case was pending, records show. After serving her sentence, she might be released on supervised release.

OAKLAND – A Bay Area resident who allegedly “bragged about sex tourism” in chat rooms where child sexual abuse footage was shared has been sentenced to 30 months in federal prison, court records show.

Nicholas Ferlatte, 56, pleaded guilty to possession of kid pornography and was sentenced late last month by U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar, records show. He has until Oct. 25 to report back to the Bureau of Prisons to start his sentence.

Ferlatte was indicted last 12 months after federal authorities infiltrated an internet chat room where users exchanged child pornography. Prosecutors said in court papers that he was identified as a user who shared 30 such files in in the future and “bragged about his involvement in sex tourism.” Federal authorities reviewed Ferlatte's travel history and located that he had taken 17 trips abroad, 12 of which were together with his family. He was never charged with sex tourism.

When Ferlatte's East Bay home was searched, he admitted that the kid pornography devices were his, prosecutors said in court documents. After serving his sentence, he shall be placed on five years of supervised release, in accordance with court records.

Originally published: October 8, 2024 at 12:16 p.m

Caroline Ellison, a former top executive at Sam Bankman-Fried's defunct cryptocurrency empire FTX, was sentenced to 2 years in prison on Tuesday after repeatedly apologizing to everyone harmed by a fraud that defrauded investors and customers of an organization that after gave the impression of a frontrunner in an emerging financial industry out of billions of dollars.

RELATED: Sean 'Diddy' Combs Has Surprising Federal Prison Roommate: Sam Bankman-Fried

U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan called Ellison's cooperation within the case “very, very extensive” and praised her testimony. He said he saw no inconsistencies with the documents presented to the jury or with things she had previously told prosecutors.

However, he said a jail sentence was vital because she had been involved in what can have been “the greatest financial fraud ever committed in this country and probably anywhere else,” or not less than near it.

He said that in such a serious case he couldn’t allow cooperation to be a free pass.

“I have seen many cooperation partners here in my 30 years. But I have never met one like Ms. Ellison,” he said.

She was ordered to report back to prison on November 7.

Ellison, 29, pleaded guilty nearly two years ago and testified against Bankman-Fried for nearly three days at a trial last November.

When the decision was handed down, she sincerely apologized to everyone who was harmed by the fraud that lasted from 2017 to 2022.

“I am deeply ashamed of what I have done,” she said, struggling through tears to inform everyone she had directly or not directly harmed that she was “so, so sorry.”

In a court filing, prosecutors said her testimony was the “cornerstone of the trial” against Bankman-Fried, 32, who was found guilty of fraud and sentenced to 25 years in prison.

Ellison's own lawyers asked the court for a lighter sentence, citing each her testimony at trial and the trauma of her off-on relationship with Bankman-Fried. But in addition they stressed that she had not tried to evade responsibility for her crimes.

“Caroline blames no one but herself for what she did,” her lawyers wrote in a court document. “She deeply regrets her role and will carry shame and remorse with her to her grave.”

FTX was considered one of the world's hottest cryptocurrency exchanges, known for its Superbowl TV industrial and extensive lobbying campaign in Washington, before it collapsed in 2022.

U.S. prosecutors accused Bankman-Fried and other top executives of plundering client accounts on the stock exchange to make dangerous investments, make hundreds of thousands of dollars in illegal political donations, bribe Chinese officials and buy luxury properties within the Caribbean.

Ellison was a managing director at Alameda Research, a cryptocurrency hedge fund controlled by Bankman-Fried, through which a few of FTX's client funds were processed.

“From the beginning, Mr. Bankman-Fried's behavior was erratic and manipulative. Initially, he confessed to strong feelings for Caroline and hinted that their connection would develop into a real relationship. However, after a few weeks, he ignored Caroline without explanation, avoided her outside of work, and refused to respond to messages that had nothing to do with work,” her lawyers said.

When the business began to fail, Ellison informed her employees in regards to the massive fraud before FTX filed for bankruptcy, her lawyers wrote.

Finally, she also spoke extensively with US investigators.

“Ellison cooperated at great personal and professional sacrifice, endured harsh media and public criticism, and endured Bankman-Fried's attempted witness tampering,” prosecutors wrote.

They said she had been open about her own wrongdoing and was “in a unique position to explain not only the what and how of Bankman-Fried's crimes, but also the why.”

“In his numerous meetings with the government, Ellison approached his cooperation with remarkable candor, remorse, and seriousness,” they wrote. “She devoted herself to an extensive document review that helped identify key supporting documents in an investigation hampered by Bankman-Fried's systematic destruction of evidence.”

It was said that her testimony within the trial was credible and convincing.

Since testifying within the Bankman-Fried trial, Ellison has devoted herself extensively to charitable work, written a novel and worked along with her parents on a sophisticated mathematics textbook for advanced highschool students, in keeping with her lawyers.

They said she also now has a healthy romantic relationship and has reconnected with highschool friends she lost touch with while working for and sometimes dating Bankman-Fried from 2017 to late 2022.

Originally published: September 25, 2024 at 04:56

Over the course of greater than a dozen “hunts,” the squad has targeted Salinas residents they believed to be members of rival gangs, the U.S. Attorney's Office said in a news release. In some cases, the victims were chosen just because they were Latino, bald or wore blue clothing.

The unit used military tactics and traveled in a convoy of special reconnaissance and gunnery vehicles, authorities said. The occupants of the primary vehicle identified a goal and the occupants of the second vehicle opened fire on the goal.

Authorities said that 11 people were killed in these hunts between 2015 and 2018. Another 17 people were shot at but survived. Most of the victims weren’t members of rival gangs and a few weren’t targeted in any respect but hit by ricochets.

The killings began, authorities said, as a technique to commemorate a recently deceased friend or loved one. Each murder also served to extend a member's status and prestige inside the gang.

“The Murder Squad killed for sport, terrorized the city of Salinas and forever changed the lives of so many innocent members of our community,” said U.S. Attorney Ismail Ramsey.

“Thanks to the longstanding and close cooperation between federal and state law enforcement agencies, these men will rightly spend the next decades of their lives in prison,” he said.

On May 7, the members pleaded guilty to 1 count of conspiracy to commit organized crime and one count of conspiracy to commit murder in aid of organized crime.

Siaki Tavale, 27, was sentenced to 41 years; John Magat, 37, was sentenced to 37 years; Anthony Valdez, 27, was sentenced to 31 years; Anelu Tavale, 28, was sentenced to 27 years; and Mark Anthony Garcia, 33, was sentenced to 25 years.

They were also ordered to serve five years' probation after serving their prison sentences.

Originally published: September 12, 2024 at 8:57 am

crime

WASHINGTON (AP) — A Massachusetts doctor who punched a police officer during a mob attack on the U.S. Capitol was sentenced Thursday to nine months in prison, followed by nine months of house arrest.

Jacquelyn Starer was in a crowd of rioters on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, when she punched the police officer and shouted a vulgar slur.

Starer told U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly that she was not pleased with her actions that day, including her “regrettable encounter” with the officer.

“I take full responsibility for my actions that day and truly wish reason had prevailed over my emotions,” she said.

Starer also reached out to the police officer she attacked to apologize. The officer, identified in court documents only by her initials, told the judge she feared for her life as she and other law enforcement officials fought for hours to defend the Capitol from the mob of Donald Trump supporters.

“Do you really take responsibility for your actions or are you just going to say, 'It wasn't my fault. Fight or flight?'” the officer asked Starer before she addressed the court.

Starer, 70, of Ashland, Massachusetts, pleaded guilty in April to eight charges, including aggravated assault, without reaching an agreement with prosecutors.

Prosecutors really helpful a jail sentence of two years and three months for Starer, a physician who practiced primarily as an addiction medicine specialist before her arrest. Starer's lawyers asked the judge to sentence her to deal with arrest as an alternative of prison.

Online licensing records show that Starer agreed in January 2023 to now not practice medicine in Massachusetts. The state had issued her a medical license in 1983.

Starer attended then-President Trump's “Stop the Steal” rally near the White House on Jan. 6 before joining the mob outside the Capitol, entering the constructing through the Rotunda doors about quarter-hour after they were breached.

In the Rotunda, Starer joined other rioters and attempted to get past law enforcement officials guarding a doorway to then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office. Starer pushed through other rioters and got to the front of the police line, where she yelled at officers.

When one other rioter tried to restrain her, Starer grabbed his arm, pushed him down, after which shoved him into the police line. When considered one of those officers pushed Starer backwards, she turned around and punched the officer. The attack was captured on video by a police body camera.

“The rioters responded to the attack by becoming more aggressive and then storming the police line,” a Justice Department prosecutor wrote.

Starer's lawyers said she became indignant on the rioter who tried to restrain her. She instinctively punched the officer's arm in response to the shove, her lawyers said. They argued Starer was reacting to the shove and was not motivated by the officer's skilled status.

“Dr. Starer deeply regrets this entire interaction and is fully aware that it constituted criminal conduct on her part,” her lawyers wrote.

The judge said Starer raced toward the police cordon “like a heat-seeking missile.”

“Given the threat to the physical safety of our members of Congress, this is a pretty disturbing thing,” Kelly said.

The judge asked Starer where she desired to go.

“The short answer is, 'I don't know,'” she replied.

Starer seemed to be fighting the results of the pepper spray as she left the Capitol about quarter-hour after entering the constructing.

“She received assistance from other rioters, including a rioter in camouflage clothing wearing a helmet with a military patch reading 'MILIZIA,'” the prosecutor wrote.

Starer's lawyers said she realized she had probably treated her last patient.

“Her inability to do the work she loves so much has left a very large void in her life that she will find difficult to fill,” they wrote.

Nearly 1,500 people have been charged with federal crimes related to the Capitol riots. More than 900 of them have been convicted and sentenced to prison terms, with about two-thirds receiving sentences starting from a number of days to 22 years.

OAKLAND – An El Cerrito man who has three previous drunken driving convictions was sentenced to 6 years in prison in 2022 for killing his friend while inebriated, court records show.

Nipun Ajmani, 44, pleaded no contest to alleged assault by drunken driving in reference to the March 12, 2022, crash on the MacArthur Maze that killed 36-year-old Zeeshan Khan, a passenger in Ajmani's automobile. He was formally sentenced in June but stays in Santa Rita Jail for now.

The story behind Ajmani's arrest began an hour before the crash, when he and Zhan were stopped by police in a vehicle driven by a 3rd party around 1:15 a.m. Officers concluded Ajmani was too drunk to drive and drove him and Zhan to the 1000 block of University Avenue in Berkeley, where Ajmani owned a cellular phone store, court records show.

Police estimated that Ajmani wouldn’t be sober until around 11 a.m. and told him so, based on court records. Instead of following officers' advice, Ajmani got behind the wheel of one other vehicle and picked up Zhan once they collided with a automobile from behind on the maze at around 2:20 a.m., authorities said.

“(Ajmani) is absolutely devastated by (Zhan's) death,” Morris wrote. “He regrets his actions and wishes nothing but healing and recovery for Mr. Khan's family.”

Ajmani was arrested after the accident and has been in prison ever since. He took classes to treat his alcoholism while in prison and is being sued by Zhan's next of kin, court records show.

According to court records, Ajmani has been convicted of drunk driving 3 times, all between 2003 and 2010.

Local news

A former Massachusetts congressional candidate will serve a jail sentence for violating campaign finance laws and other charges, prosecutors announced.

Abhijit “Beej” Das was sentenced last week to 21 months in prison for violating the Federal Election Campaign Act and making false statements. after to the office of Acting U.S. Attorney Joshua Levy.

Das, who finished seventh within the Democratic primary won by Rep. Lori Trahan within the 2017-2018 election, was found guilty last 12 months of accepting excessive campaign contributions, passing donations, embezzling campaign funds and two counts of constructing false statements.

During the election campaign, Das developed a scheme to inflate his donations by taking out personal loans from friends and shut acquaintances above the legally permitted amount, prosecutors said. He was also accused of using his campaign account to repay outstanding debts for his hotel business and covering up the withdrawals with falsified campaign finance reports.

“The FBI is committed to protecting the integrity of our election system and will not allow corruption like this to go unchecked,” Jodi Cohen, special agent in control of the FBI's Boston Division, said in a press release.

Das was sentenced to serve one 12 months of probation following his prison sentence and to pay a positive of $25,000.

That has also ended individually charged charged with 10 counts of wire fraud, in a case by which authorities say he diverted greater than $5 million in trust funds from his clients' accounts for private expenses, based on Levy's office. He has pleaded not guilty in that case and is free pending trial.

On May 2, Vo Nguyen pleaded guilty to assault on a federal worker with a deadly or dangerous weapon and discharging a firearm in reference to a violent crime.

The incident occurred on April 1, 2023. Nguyen yelled at a postal employee who was delivering mail to his home, the U.S. Attorney's Office said in a press release.

According to prosecutors, Nguyen admitted that he “aggressively approached” the postal employee and “acted as if he wanted to fight.”

The postal employee ran away. Nguyen followed him and the postal employee sprayed him with pepper spray.

Nguyen went back home, grabbed a 9mm pistol, got in his automobile and began on the lookout for the postal employee.

After finding the postal employee, Nguyen fired five to 6 shots at him, paused after which fired five more shots, prosecutors said.

The postal employee ran in the other way Nguyen was driving. Nguyen turned around and drove after the postal employee, who took cover behind a parked SUV.

According to prosecutors, Nguyen stopped in front of the SUV and fired three more shots. He then got out of his automobile and chased the postal employee, who pepper-sprayed him again.

Nguyen was arrested the identical day, and a federal grand jury indicted him the next month.

The verdict was announced on Thursday. In addition to the prison term, U.S. District Judge William H. Orrick sentenced Nguyen to 3 years' probation after his release from prison. A restitution hearing is scheduled for October 10.