Articles Tagged: Doj
Federal prosecutors have unsealed a nine-count indictment charging Louis Trejo, Kenneth Garner, Harold Stevenson, and Erihk Belis in a sweeping alleged scheme that combines classic healthcare fraud allegations with racketeering, firearms, narcotics, money laundering, and violence-related counts. According to the Justice Department, the case centers on an alleged “War Room” enterprise that used fabricated transportation data to support at least $12 million in fraudulent Medicaid claims.
The charging mix is what makes this filing especially notable.
A California federal judge has approved the Justice Department’s settlement allowing Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s $14 billion acquisition of Juniper Networks to move forward, rejecting objections from a coalition of state attorneys general and closing a closely watched chapter in federal merger enforcement.
The case, United States of America v. Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co. et al, drew unusual attention because the dispute was not just over the substance of the antitrust remedy, but also over whether the court should probe claims that outside lobbying may have influenced the DOJ’s settlement decision.
Veloxis Pharmaceuticals has agreed to pay more than $46 million to resolve criminal and civil allegations that it used kickbacks to drive prescriptions and purchases of Envarsus XR, its kidney-transplant drug. According to the Department of Justice, the resolution includes a deferred prosecution agreement tied to a criminal information filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, underscoring the government’s continued focus on pharmaceutical marketing practices that allegedly influence prescribing decisions.
The matter is significant because it combines both criminal and civil exposure in a single healthcare-fraud resolution.
The legal fallout is still building from a federal judge’s decision to throw out a settlement in President Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS, concluding the agreement had “no basis in law.” The ruling did more than unwind a headline-grabbing deal: it opened the door to sanctions, ethics referrals, and renewed scrutiny of how government lawyers and private counsel structure settlements in politically sensitive litigation.
In the Southern District of Florida, Judge Kathleen Williams reportedly found that the settlement could not stand because it exceeded lawful authority and appeared to use the judicial process in a way the court would not endorse.
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Two recent federal criminal actions show the Justice Department continuing to press aggressively in both competition and health care enforcement. In Oklahoma City, a federal jury convicted Sioux Erosion Control Inc., along with one executive and one employee, for participating in a roughly $100 million bid-rigging and price-fixing conspiracy tied to public transportation contracts. In a separate matter, prosecutors unsealed a racketeering indictment accusing four alleged members of the “War Room” of orchestrating a $12 million Medicaid fraud scheme.
Taken together, the matters are a reminder that DOJ is treating criminal antitrust and health care fraud as parallel priority areas, with consequences that extend well beyond the charged defendants.
The Department of Justice has announced a significant federal indictment in the Northern District of Georgia charging Zhu Chen, Jiayi Chen, and Jianjun Lu with forced labor, conspiracy to commit forced labor, and alien harboring. The case, brought as United States v. Zhu Chen, Jiayi Chen, and Jianjun Lu, underscores how federal prosecutors are continuing to pair labor-exploitation allegations with immigration-related charges in high-stakes criminal enforcement actions.
According to DOJ, the indictment alleges a combination of coercive labor practices and unlawful harboring of noncitizens.
The U.S. Department of Justice has opened a new front in federal-state immigration litigation, filing suits against New York, Connecticut, and Vermont over laws that allow certain undocumented students to qualify for in-state tuition rates and, in some cases, state financial aid. The federal government’s core argument is that these state policies conflict with federal restrictions on postsecondary education benefits tied to immigration status.
At the center of the dispute is the interaction between federal immigration law and state authority over public higher education.
The Department of Justice has announced a major healthcare-fraud prosecution in Nevada, where a federal grand jury indicted physician Stephen Dubin, M.D., in connection with an alleged $95 million Medicare fraud scheme involving amniotic wound allografts. According to the government, the case centers on claims that medically unnecessary grafts were billed for elderly patients, making it one of the more significant recent criminal matters tied to Medicare reimbursement and wound-care products.
The allegations are notable both for their scale and for the product category involved.
A federal judge in Miami has thrown out a proposed settlement in President Donald Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS, finding the case was pursued for an improper purpose and concluding that the deal itself could not stand. In a sharp rebuke, U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams also referred Trump attorney Alejandro Brito and senior Justice Department officials to bar authorities for possible professional-conduct violations.
The rejected agreement reportedly would have provided unusually broad protections for Trump and established a compensation fund approaching $1.8 billion.
The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division has announced a $3.2 million settlement with OpenAI OpCo LLC and Statsig Inc. over allegations that the companies discriminated against U.S. workers. The resolution is notable not only because it involves a major AI company, but also because it underscores the government’s continued focus on employment practices at the intersection of immigration law, recruiting, and workforce compliance.
While the public attention around AI companies often centers on data use, intellectual property, and product liability, this matter is a reminder that hiring practices remain a significant enforcement risk.
The Justice Department’s recent public announcements underscore a familiar but increasingly urgent message for companies: federal enforcement remains active across corporate crime, fraud, and compliance-related matters, even during quieter stretches in the court-news cycle. Over the past several days and weeks, DOJ press activity has continued to highlight criminal prosecutions, civil enforcement actions, and policy messaging that together reinforce the government’s expectation that companies maintain credible, well-documented compliance programs.
For legal professionals, the significance is less about any single headline than about the aggregate signal.
The Department of Justice’s recent press-release activity points to a notable trend for legal professionals: federal enforcement remains active on multiple fronts at once. In late July and early August, DOJ announcements reflected a steady mix of healthcare-fraud resolutions, terrorism-related charges, and other criminal prosecutions, underscoring that the government is continuing to deploy both its criminal and civil tools aggressively across industries and fact patterns.
That matters because the news is not just about any single headline-making case.
The FTC has secured what it says is the largest civil penalty ever obtained for a Hart-Scott-Rodino filing failure: a combined $12 million settlement with Edwards Lifesciences and Genesis MedTech over the acquisition of JC Medical. According to the agency, the companies structured the transaction to avoid premerger notification and waiting-period requirements under the HSR Act, prompting an enforcement action filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia by the DOJ on the FTC’s behalf.
That headline number matters.
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The Justice Department has authorized a $400 million settlement to resolve litigation brought by the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium over contract support costs under the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act (ISDEAA). The dispute centered on the federal government’s obligation to fund the overhead and administrative expenses tribal entities incur when they assume responsibility for delivering healthcare services that the government would otherwise provide.
The settlement is notable not just for its size, but for what it says about the federal government’s continuing exposure in ISDEAA funding disputes.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has handed federal prosecutors a significant win in the Buffalo mass-shooting case, ruling that the Justice Department may rely on the alleged gunman’s racist motive as part of its pursuit of the death penalty. The decision addresses a high-stakes issue in one of the most closely watched federal criminal prosecutions in the country: how the government may frame aggravating factors when seeking capital punishment.
At a practical level, the ruling means prosecutors can present the alleged racial animus behind the 2022 supermarket attack as relevant to the penalty phase, rather than being forced to cabin the case to the underlying acts alone.

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