U.S. Attorneys’ offices in Kansas and western Missouri had big increases in the amount of money they collected in criminal and civil actions.
In Missouri, civil and criminal collections totaled nearly $38 million for the fiscal year that ended September 30, of which nearly $24 million came from the western District. Last year, that office collected about $15 million. Two large civil settlements make up much of that increase. The Minnesota-based hardware distributor Fastenal paid $6.25 million in a false claims dispute over a government contract. And the Ohio pharmaceutical firm Cardinal Health chipped in $8 million for its alleged violations of the False Claims Act.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Kansas collected $11.8 million
Nationwide, U.S. Attorneys’ offices collected $6.5 billion dollars, which is more than triple the total budgets for the 94 offices across the country. The U.S. Attorneys’ Offices, along with the department’s litigating divisions, are responsible for enforcing and collecting civil and criminal debts owed to the U.S. and criminal debts owed to federal crime victims.
The total amount collected in criminal actions totaled $2.66 billion in restitution, criminal fines, and felony assessments.
The law requires defendants to pay restitution to victims of certain federal crimes who have suffered a physical injury or financial loss. While restitution is paid directly to the victim, criminal fines and felony assessments are paid to the department’s Crime Victims’ Fund, which distributes the funds to state victim compensation and victim assistance programs.
The statistics also indicate that $3.83 billion was collected by the U.S. Attorneys’ offices in individually and jointly handled civil actions. The largest civil collections were from affirmative civil enforcement cases, in which the United States recovered government money lost to fraud or other misconduct or collected fines imposed on individuals and/or corporations fo violations of federal health, safety, civil rights or environmental laws. In addition, civil debts were collected on behalf of several federal agencies, including the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Health and Human Services, Internal Revenue Service, and Small Business Administration.
Additionally, the U.S. Attorneys’ offices, working with partner agencies and divisions, collected $1.68 billion in asset forfeiture actions in FY 2011. Forfeited assets are deposited into the Department of Justice Assets Forfeiture Fund and Department of Treasury Forfeiture Fund and are used to restore funds to crime victims and for a variety of law enforcement purposes.
The nationwide collection totals for the U.S. Attorneys’ offices for FY 2010 and FY 2011 combined is $13.18 billion, which represents nearly a 52% increase over the FY 2008 and FY 2009 combined total of $8.55 billion.