U.S. Attorney J. Douglas Overbey announced that the Eastern District of Tennessee collected $11,041,603.14, in criminal and civil actions in Fiscal Year 2017. Of this amount, $9,282,250.34, was collected in criminal actions and $1,759,352.80, was collected in civil actions.
Additionally, the Eastern District of Tennessee worked with other U.S. Attorney’s offices and components of the Department of Justice to collect an additional $92,344,571.85, in cases pursued jointly with these offices. Of this amount, $8,310.00, was collected in criminal actions and $92,336,261.85, was collected in civil actions.
Overall, the Justice Department collected just over $15 billion in civil and criminal actions in the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2017.
U.S. Attorney J. Douglas Overbey praised the hard work of the Assistant U.S. Attorneys and the Monetary Recovery Unit in his office stating, “The overall mission of the U.S. Attorney’s office involves not just protecting the public by prosecuting and locking up criminals, but also helping to restore victims to the fullest extent possible. Restitution, fines and assessments ordered by the U.S. District Court, when collected by our office, benefit all victims of crime. Collected restitution is paid directly to the victim(s) of the crime(s) for whom it was ordered, while collected fines and assessments are paid to the Crime Victims’ Fund to fund state victim compensation and assistance programs.”
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 for 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, Small Business Administration and Department of Education.
Additionally, the U.S. Attorney’s office for the Eastern District of Tennessee, working with partner agencies and divisions, collected $4,512,735.00 in asset forfeiture actions in FY 2017. Forfeited assets deposited into the Department of Justice Assets Forfeiture Fund are used to restore funds to crime victims and for a variety of law enforcement purposes.